Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors Reduces Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors lowered its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 1,175 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 84 shares during the quarter. Bay Colony Advisory Group Inc d b a Bay Colony Advisors’ holdings in Accenture were worth $412,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Chilton Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Accenture by 180.0% during the fourth quarter. Chilton Capital Management LLC now owns 70 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 45 shares during the period. Halpern Financial Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $31,000. Strategic Investment Solutions Inc. IL purchased a new position in Accenture during the first quarter worth about $28,000. BluePath Capital Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $31,000. Finally, RVW Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently commented on ACN. Mizuho reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $398.00 price objective (down previously from $426.00) on shares of Accenture in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. Redburn Atlantic raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 19th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $394.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, March 18th. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $360.00 target price (down previously from $400.00) on shares of Accenture in a report on Thursday, March 21st. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $374.00 to $381.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, March 22nd. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other Accenture news, COO John F. Walsh sold 8,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $332.13, for a total value of $2,657,040.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 17,877 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,937,488.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Jean-Marc Ollagnier sold 6,250 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $362.77, for a total transaction of $2,267,312.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 167,831 shares in the company, valued at $60,884,051.87. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 31,000 shares of company stock worth $11,146,998 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $313.36 on Tuesday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $359.41 and a 200 day moving average price of $342.09. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $261.68 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The company has a market cap of $210.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.41, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.99 and a beta of 1.19.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.66 by $0.11. The firm had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $15.85 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 10.89% and a return on equity of 28.30%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was down .1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $2.69 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.09 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be paid a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 1.65%. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 46.78%.

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.