Short Interest in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Drops By 9.5%

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) saw a significant decrease in short interest in September. As of September 15th, there was short interest totalling 6,260,000 shares, a decrease of 9.5% from the August 31st total of 6,920,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 2,730,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 2.3 days. Currently, 1.0% of the shares of the company are short sold.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Wedbush reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Barclays dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $350.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Monday, June 17th. Susquehanna increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $360.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday. TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $293.00 to $321.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, September 12th. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday. Nine investment 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.com, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $364.64.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total transaction of $1,649,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 8,989 shares in the company, valued at $2,964,751.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total transaction of $1,649,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 8,989 shares in the company, valued at $2,964,751.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Kathleen R. Mcclure sold 3,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $309.22, for a total transaction of $927,660.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 40,070 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,390,445.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 21,421 shares of company stock worth $6,912,635 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Accenture

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Accretive Wealth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.3% during the 4th quarter. Accretive Wealth Partners LLC now owns 2,171 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $762,000 after acquiring an additional 48 shares in the last quarter. Aveo Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 7.6% during the 4th quarter. Aveo Capital Partners LLC now owns 2,264 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $794,000 after buying an additional 160 shares during the period. 9258 Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. 9258 Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,308 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $459,000 after buying an additional 46 shares during the period. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 79.5% during the 4th quarter. Gryphon Financial Partners LLC now owns 2,535 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $881,000 after buying an additional 1,123 shares during the period. Finally, Evoke Wealth LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 6.2% during the 4th quarter. Evoke Wealth LLC now owns 4,694 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,647,000 after buying an additional 276 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN traded down $6.11 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $349.70. 2,575,382 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,782,510. Accenture has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $333.92 and its 200 day simple moving average is $320.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $219.15 billion, a PE ratio of 32.02, a PEG ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.79% and a return on equity of 27.48%. Accenture’s revenue was up 2.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.71 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture will post 11.95 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th will be issued a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 47.25%.

Accenture declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share 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 buy up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.