Advisors Asset Management Inc. Raises Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Advisors Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 45,540 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,240 shares during the period. Advisors Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $16,021,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 5.7% in the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $230,000 after buying an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Accenture by 0.3% in the third quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,065,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Monday. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Robert W. Baird upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $390.00 price target on the stock in a report on Monday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.04.

Accenture Trading Up 2.3 %

Shares of ACN opened at $326.25 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The business’s fifty day moving average is $362.51 and its 200-day moving average is $358.14. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market cap of $204.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.37, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. Accenture’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $3.27 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction 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. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.