Accenture Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NYSE:ACN)

Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) saw some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Stock investors acquired 44,309 put options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 449% compared to the typical daily volume of 8,073 put options.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total transaction of $1,119,118.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,193 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,417,957.40. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In other news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $371.81, for a total value of $1,859,050.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 20,316 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,553,691.96. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 3,010 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $371.80, for a total transaction of $1,119,118.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,193 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,417,957.40. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 39,833 shares of company stock worth $13,645,871 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Accenture

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 58,434,025 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $17,945,673,000 after purchasing an additional 184,541 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.4% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 13,316,028 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,089,485,000 after purchasing an additional 565,505 shares in the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.0% during the 3rd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 11,034,666 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,388,856,000 after purchasing an additional 720,647 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 8,479,430 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,975,517,000 after purchasing an additional 159,696 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.6% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 8,285,864 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,544,672,000 after purchasing an additional 443,004 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $313.54 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $210.30 billion, a PE ratio of 28.43, a P/E/G ratio of 3.01 and a beta of 1.19. Accenture has a 12 month low of $261.68 and a 12 month high of $387.51. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $352.14 and its 200 day moving average is $342.20.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 21st. The information technology services provider reported $2.77 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.66 by $0.11. The company had revenue of $15.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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 period last year, the business earned $2.69 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture will post 12.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, May 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 11th will be paid a dividend of $1.29 per share. This represents a $5.16 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 10th. Accenture’s payout ratio is 46.78%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $365.00 to $400.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Redburn Atlantic increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $410.00 to $445.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 19th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $363.00 to $395.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 18th. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $430.00 to $400.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 22nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on shares of Accenture from $364.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 7th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.00.

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.