Hoxton Planning & Management LLC Has $661,000 Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Hoxton Planning & Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 37.6% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 1,871 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 511 shares during the quarter. Hoxton Planning & Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $661,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Annapolis Financial Services LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 507.7% in the 1st quarter. Annapolis Financial Services LLC now owns 79 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 66 shares in the last quarter. Ables Iannone Moore & Associates Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter worth about $29,000. Atwood & Palmer Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 214.8% in the 1st quarter. Atwood & Palmer Inc. now owns 85 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 58 shares during the last quarter. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. Finally, Grayhawk Investment Strategies Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of several research reports. Guggenheim raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $395.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 27th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $390.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 27th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on shares of Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, September 24th. Mizuho increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $352.00 to $365.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 18th. Finally, Wedbush lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $400.00 to $350.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $371.18.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $360.38 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $225.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.00, a PEG ratio of 3.69 and a beta of 1.25. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $387.51. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $337.24 and its 200-day moving average price is $319.79.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 26th. The information technology services provider reported $2.79 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.78 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $16.41 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.37 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The firm’s revenue was up 2.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.71 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 11.95 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, November 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, October 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, October 10th. This is a boost from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 1.64%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 54.21%.

Accenture announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan on Thursday, September 26th that authorizes the company to buyback $4.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the information technology services provider to purchase up to 1.8% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the general counsel now directly owns 22,849 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,564,161.45. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 3,776 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, July 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $309.05, for a total transaction of $1,166,972.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,819 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,652,661.95. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,564,161.45. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 21,421 shares of company stock valued at $6,912,635. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate 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.