Dorsey & Whitney Trust CO LLC Trims Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Dorsey & Whitney Trust CO LLC cut its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.2% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 8,185 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 727 shares during the period. Dorsey & Whitney Trust CO LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,879,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Swedbank AB increased its position in shares of Accenture by 16.6% during the third quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after acquiring an additional 363,401 shares during the last quarter. Cozad Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $225,000. TFB Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 8.3% during the third quarter. TFB Advisors LLC now owns 727 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $257,000 after acquiring an additional 56 shares during the last quarter. Fiera Capital Corp increased its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the third quarter. Fiera Capital Corp now owns 45,609 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $16,122,000 after acquiring an additional 3,135 shares during the last quarter. Finally, CWA Asset Management Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at about $6,108,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $341.68 on Friday. 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 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $213.82 billion, a PE ratio of 28.66, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $365.74 and its 200-day simple moving average is $358.46.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of 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 report on Friday, December 6th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Robert W. Baird restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, 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 transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % 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 over the last ninety days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Company 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.