Sierra Summit Advisors LLC Cuts Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sierra Summit Advisors LLC lowered its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.9% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,305 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 170 shares during the quarter. Sierra Summit Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $811,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter valued at about $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 5.4 %

Shares of ACN opened at $285.04 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $275.00 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $178.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.91, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.32. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $349.68 and its 200 day simple moving average is $354.67.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 20th. The information technology services provider reported $2.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.81 by $0.01. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $16.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $16.64 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $2.77 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 5.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.08%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is currently 48.89%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms recently commented on ACN. Robert W. Baird raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday, March 17th. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $378.23.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 21,905 shares of company stock worth $8,181,753 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.