Yousif Capital Management LLC Sells 1,075 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Yousif Capital Management LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.3% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 80,445 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,075 shares during the quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $25,102,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 0.7% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 60,394,657 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $21,246,236,000 after buying an additional 392,183 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Accenture by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 13,528,348 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,750,021,000 after buying an additional 136,665 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its position in Accenture by 16.8% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 12,295,748 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,325,526,000 after buying an additional 1,770,024 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in Accenture by 22.8% in the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 12,175,518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,283,225,000 after buying an additional 2,260,740 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Capital International Investors lifted its position in Accenture by 2.2% in the 4th quarter. Capital International Investors now owns 8,513,140 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,994,922,000 after buying an additional 181,449 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, COO John F. Walsh sold 2,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $325.00, for a total value of $812,500.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 15,882 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,161,650. This represents a 13.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 169 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.90, for a total value of $47,641.10. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,364 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,512,111.60. The trade was a 3.05% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have weighed in on ACN. Morgan Stanley lowered their price objective on Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Piper Sandler lowered their price objective on Accenture from $364.00 to $355.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 16th. Royal Bank of Canada lowered their price objective on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Finally, Guggenheim lowered 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. Seven investment 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $382.14.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $316.72 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $198.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.57, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.33. The business’s fifty day moving average is $303.16 and its 200 day moving average is $336.65. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $275.01 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 5.7% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 10th were paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, April 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.87%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Accenture 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.