Harbour Investments Inc. Purchases 141 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Harbour Investments Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 14.1% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,143 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 141 shares during the period. Harbour Investments Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $404,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Unique Wealth Strategies LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 2nd quarter worth $26,000. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the second quarter valued at about $28,000. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the 3rd quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 85 shares during the last quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC grew its position in Accenture by 108.0% during the 1st quarter. Creekmur Asset Management LLC now owns 104 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $36,000 after purchasing an additional 54 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Tsfg LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 31.1% during the 2nd quarter. Tsfg LLC now owns 135 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $41,000 after purchasing an additional 32 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 673 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $372.18, for a total transaction of $250,477.14. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 5,650 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,102,817. The trade was a 10.64 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 9,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, October 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $376.16, for a total transaction of $3,385,440.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 20,324 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,645,075.84. The trade was a 30.69 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 36,298 shares of company stock valued at $13,372,661 in the last ninety days. 0.07% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $370.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 27th. Piper Sandler Companies reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $329.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, September 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Accenture from $376.00 to $370.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, September 24th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 24th. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $350.00 to $415.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, September 30th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $368.23.

Accenture Trading Down 2.3 %

ACN stock opened at $353.57 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $355.55 and its 200 day moving average is $327.08. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $387.51. The stock has a market cap of $221.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.93, a PEG ratio of 3.24 and a beta of 1.25.

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

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

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, October 10th were issued a $1.48 dividend. This is an increase from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.29. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, October 10th. This represents a $5.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.67%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 51.79%.

Accenture Company 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.