Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by Rakuten Securities Inc.

Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 220.0% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 176 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 121 shares during the quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $62,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $388.96.

Accenture Trading Down 1.1 %

ACN stock opened at $324.25 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $202.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.20, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s 50-day moving average is $364.36 and its 200 day moving average is $358.39.

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

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. 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.