Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by First National Advisers LLC

First National Advisers LLC lifted its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 9,386 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 246 shares during the period. First National Advisers LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $3,302,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA boosted its stake in Accenture by 6.5% during the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. boosted its stake in Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC boosted its stake in Accenture by 126.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after buying an additional 22,391 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.2% during the third 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 buying an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Finally, China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in Accenture by 37.5% during the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after buying an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group upped their price target on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, 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 research note on Friday, December 6th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.52.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $318.28 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $363.01 and its two-hundred day moving average is $358.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $199.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during 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 quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. Analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was 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 directly owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently 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.