Swiss National Bank Has $620.98 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Swiss National Bank lessened its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.1% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 1,765,200 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 94,000 shares during the period. Accenture comprises approximately 0.4% of Swiss National Bank’s holdings, making the stock its 29th largest holding. Swiss National Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $620,980,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% during the 4th 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 during the period. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised 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 valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% in the 3rd quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,871,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares in the last quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.6% in the 4th quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the last quarter. Finally, TCW Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the 3rd quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,065,000 after buying an additional 30 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday. 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 report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $388.96.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $324.25 on Thursday. 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’s fifty day simple moving average is $364.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $358.39. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The firm 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.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current 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.