Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Insider Ellyn Shook Sells 5,000 Shares

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, April 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $307.22, for a total transaction of $1,536,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 13,699 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,208,606.78. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Accenture Trading Down 0.2 %

ACN stock traded down $0.57 during trading on Friday, reaching $308.43. The stock had a trading volume of 591,670 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,399,395. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $261.68 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The company has a market capitalization of $206.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.00, a PEG ratio of 2.97 and a beta of 1.19. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $350.89 and a 200 day moving average price of $341.97.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.11. The business had revenue of $15.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.89% and a return on equity of 28.30%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $2.69 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.09 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be paid a $1.29 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.67%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 46.78%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Guggenheim initiated coverage on Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. They set a “buy” rating and a $425.00 price objective for the company. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $374.00 to $381.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 18th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.00.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Accenture

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ACN. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $2,061,490,000. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main raised its stake in Accenture by 100.0% during the fourth quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 1,751,531 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $614,615,000 after acquiring an additional 875,723 shares during the period. Winslow Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $288,168,000. Generation Investment Management LLP acquired a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $286,220,000. Finally, Public Employees Retirement Association of Colorado acquired a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $263,421,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

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.