Bridgewater Associates LP Has $609,000 Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Bridgewater Associates LP cut its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 92.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,723 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 19,852 shares during the quarter. Bridgewater Associates LP’s holdings in Accenture were worth $609,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Matrix Trust Co lifted its stake in Accenture by 17.5% during the second quarter. Matrix Trust Co now owns 7,343 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,228,000 after purchasing an additional 1,091 shares during the period. M. Kraus & Co lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 81.6% during the 2nd quarter. M. Kraus & Co now owns 19,778 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $6,001,000 after buying an additional 8,886 shares during the period. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 257.6% in the 2nd quarter. Linden Thomas Advisory Services LLC now owns 4,731 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,435,000 after buying an additional 3,408 shares in the last quarter. Exchange Bank raised its stake in Accenture by 14.5% during the second quarter. Exchange Bank now owns 742 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $225,000 after acquiring an additional 94 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northside Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.6% during the second quarter. Northside Capital Management LLC now owns 2,799 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $849,000 after acquiring an additional 124 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Down 0.3 %

Accenture stock opened at $361.25 on Tuesday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $358.68 and a 200-day moving average of $331.17. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $387.51. The stock has a market capitalization of $225.84 billion, a PE ratio of 31.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.17 and a beta of 1.25.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.83% and a net margin of 11.20%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $2.71 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 51.79%.

Accenture declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to repurchase $4.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to repurchase up to 1.8% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have commented on ACN. Susquehanna boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $329.00 to $395.00 in a research note on Thursday, September 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 24th. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $368.23.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,136 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, October 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.07, for a total value of $2,945,801.52. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 12,188 shares in the company, valued at $4,412,909.16. This trade represents a 40.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Ryoji Sekido sold 3,191 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $343.70, for a total value of $1,096,746.70. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 6 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062.20. This trade represents a 99.81 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,298 shares of company stock worth $13,372,661. 0.07% of the stock is 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.