Virtus ETF Advisers LLC Buys New Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Virtus ETF Advisers LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 3,187 shares of the information technology services provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,121,000.

Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $22,314,000 after acquiring an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $812,000 after acquiring an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 126.8% during the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $14,090,000 after acquiring an additional 22,391 shares during the period. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 37.5% during the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $1,088,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares during the period. Finally, SteelPeak Wealth LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 127.1% during the 4th quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 2,323 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $817,000 after acquiring an additional 1,300 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Mizuho dropped their price objective on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, March 19th. Guggenheim dropped their price objective on Accenture from $400.00 to $395.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a "peer perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $377.82.

Accenture Stock Up 1.2 %

Shares of NYSE ACN traded up $3.71 during trading on Thursday, hitting $302.86. The stock had a trading volume of 1,307,210 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,974,503. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $275.01 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The company has a market capitalization of $189.69 billion, a PE ratio of 25.39, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $311.16 and a two-hundred day moving average of $345.90.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business's revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.77 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.95%. Accenture's payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total value of $1,003,982.14. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 17,237 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 15,041 shares of company stock valued at $5,254,956 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

About Accenture

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.