New York Life Investment Management LLC Decreases Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

New York Life Investment Management LLC reduced its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.0% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 92,901 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 920 shares during the period. New York Life Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $32,682,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its position in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Accenture during the third quarter worth about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. BMO Capital Markets raised their price objective 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. BNP Paribas cut shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Stock Down 1.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $358.32 on Thursday. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a 50 day moving average of $367.94 and a 200 day moving average of $357.33. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company has a market capitalization of $224.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.06, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were 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 owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 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 transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About Accenture

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.