CWA Asset Management Group LLC Buys 1,798 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

CWA Asset Management Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 10.4% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 19,077 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,798 shares during the quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,711,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the 2nd quarter valued at $28,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter worth $30,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in Accenture by 607.1% during the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares during the period. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $39,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group lifted their price target on Accenture from $355.00 to $385.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. TD Cowen raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $321.00 to $400.00 in a research report on Monday, September 30th. UBS Group upped their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $383.23.

Accenture Price Performance

Accenture stock traded down $0.37 during mid-day trading on Monday, reaching $353.48. 300,122 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,517,967. The company has a market capitalization of $221.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 is $357.59 and its two-hundred day moving average is $342.62.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a net margin of 11.20% and a return on equity of 26.83%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, February 14th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, January 16th will be given a dividend of $1.48 per share. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.67%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, January 16th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 49.66%.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $369.97, for a total transaction of $1,757,357.50. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 22,976 shares in the company, valued at $8,500,430.72. This represents a 17.13 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 36,673 shares of company stock valued at $13,507,099. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.