UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp Has $3.49 Million Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.5% during the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 11,503 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 698 shares during the quarter. UNIVEST FINANCIAL Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $3,490,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $2,061,490,000. Swedbank AB bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the first quarter worth $820,912,000. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 100.0% during the fourth quarter. DZ BANK AG Deutsche Zentral Genossenschafts Bank Frankfurt am Main now owns 1,751,531 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $614,615,000 after buying an additional 875,723 shares in the last quarter. Winslow Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at $288,168,000. Finally, Generation Investment Management LLP bought a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $286,220,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $339.73 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $323.63 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $324.57. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $387.51. The firm has a market cap of $212.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.11, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.81 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.13 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $3.15 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $16.47 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $16.55 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 27.48% and a net margin of 10.79%. The company’s revenue was down .6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.19 EPS. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 11.95 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, August 15th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 11th were issued a dividend of $1.29 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, July 11th. This represents a $5.16 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.52%. Accenture’s payout ratio is 47.25%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total transaction of $1,649,100.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 8,989 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 8,145 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, July 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $331.05, for a total transaction of $2,696,402.25. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 22,849 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,564,161.45. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider Ellyn Shook sold 5,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $329.82, for a total value of $1,649,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 8,989 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,964,751.98. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 21,421 shares of company stock worth $6,912,635 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.07% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ACN. Robert W. Baird cut their price target on Accenture from $372.00 to $345.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 16th. Guggenheim reissued a “buy” rating and set a $395.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Friday, May 24th. Piper Sandler dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $379.00 to $320.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, June 17th. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on Accenture from $294.00 to $293.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, June 21st. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on Accenture from $340.00 to $275.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, June 5th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $353.41.

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.