Private Trust Co. NA Decreases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Private Trust Co. NA decreased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 4,253 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 194 shares during the quarter. Private Trust Co. NA’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,496,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares in the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Swedbank AB boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp boosted its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.5% during the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $668,974,000 after acquiring an additional 28,491 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 2.4 %

ACN stock opened at $348.28 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $217.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 business has a fifty day simple moving average of $367.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $357.56. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. UBS Group upped their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.96.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.