Accenture PLC $ACN Shares Purchased by Boston Research & Management Inc.

Boston Research & Management Inc. grew its position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 19,056 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 501 shares during the quarter. Boston Research & Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,695,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ACN. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 65,129,782 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $19,466,641,000 after purchasing an additional 1,315,548 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Accenture by 1.1% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,042,843 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,182,331,000 after buying an additional 147,931 shares in the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.6% in the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 8,998,826 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $2,689,659,000 after acquiring an additional 56,108 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 63.9% in the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 8,953,621 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $2,793,889,000 after acquiring an additional 3,490,569 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sanders Capital LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the second quarter valued at $2,637,640,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Rothschild Redb lowered shares of Accenture from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 3rd. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Accenture to a “moderate sell” rating in a research note on Monday, July 28th. Morgan Stanley lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $325.00 to $271.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Jefferies Financial Group reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, September 30th. Finally, Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday, September 26th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fifteen have assigned a Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $294.25.

Accenture Trading Up 4.6%

Shares of ACN opened at $251.87 on Friday. Accenture PLC has a twelve month low of $229.40 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $165.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 20.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.16 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a current ratio of 1.42, a quick ratio of 1.42 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.16. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $244.30 and its 200 day simple moving average is $270.93.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, September 25th. The information technology services provider reported $3.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.98 by $0.05. The firm had revenue of $17.60 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.34 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.45% and a net margin of 11.02%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 7.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $2.66 earnings per share. Accenture has set its FY 2026 guidance at 13.190-13.570 EPS. Q1 2026 guidance at EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Accenture Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, November 14th. Shareholders of record on Friday, October 10th were given a dividend of $1.63 per share. This represents a $6.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.6%. This is a positive change from Accenture’s previous quarterly dividend of $1.48. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, October 10th. Accenture’s dividend payout ratio is presently 53.66%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 5,917 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $246.62, for a total value of $1,459,250.54. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 8,599 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,120,685.38. This trade represents a 40.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Manish Sharma sold 6,902 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, October 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.01, for a total value of $1,725,569.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 1,860 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $465,018.60. This represents a 78.77% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 33,319 shares of company stock worth $8,335,225 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.