M&T Bank Corp Increases Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

M&T Bank Corp grew its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.9% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 240,673 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 11,293 shares during the quarter. M&T Bank Corp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $84,667,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 5.7% during the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $182,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings 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. Tradition Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 0.3% during 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 purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. raised its holdings 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 acquiring an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 30 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on ACN. UBS Group boosted their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN opened at $345.84 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $366.68 and a 200-day moving average of $358.37. The firm has a market capitalization of $216.42 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.01, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.