Hartford Funds Management Co LLC Sells 152 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Hartford Funds Management Co LLC lessened its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.3% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 1,196 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 152 shares during the quarter. Hartford Funds Management Co LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $421,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. boosted 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 worth $182,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. boosted its holdings in 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 in the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,065,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. UBS Group upped their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, StockNews.com raised Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $341.34 on Friday. 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 50-day simple moving average of $366.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $358.18. The stock has a market cap of $213.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.64, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 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. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture 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.