Accenture PLC $ACN Shares Sold by M. Kraus & Co

M. Kraus & Co cut its holdings in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 1.7% during the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 19,146 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 324 shares during the quarter. Accenture comprises approximately 1.7% of M. Kraus & Co’s portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest holding. M. Kraus & Co’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,723,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 63.9% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,793,889,000 after acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 63,814,234 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $19,912,594,000 after acquiring an additional 3,419,577 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 2,782.1% during the first quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,445,281 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $450,985,000 after acquiring an additional 1,395,135 shares during the period. McElhenny Sheffield Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter worth about $308,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 23.5% during the first quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,823,228 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $880,960,000 after acquiring an additional 537,223 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3%

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $252.28 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a 12-month low of $229.40 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $158.01 billion, a PE ratio of 20.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16, a current ratio of 1.42 and a quick ratio of 1.46. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $247.73 and its two-hundred day moving average is $282.04.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.98 by $0.05. Accenture had a net margin of 11.02% and a return on equity of 26.45%. The company had revenue of $17.60 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.66 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 14th. Investors of record on Friday, October 10th will be paid a dividend of $1.63 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. This represents a $6.52 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.6%. Accenture’s payout ratio is currently 48.72%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ACN. Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $330.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, September 26th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $260.00 to $235.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $302.00 to $290.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 26th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $270.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, September 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have issued a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $300.22.

Accenture Company Profile

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.