Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Main Street Research LLC

Main Street Research LLC lowered its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.9% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 2,878 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 56 shares during the quarter. Main Street Research LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,012,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the 3rd quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,746,455,000 after purchasing an additional 140,726 shares in the last quarter. Amundi lifted its position in Accenture by 27.9% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,353,909,000 after buying an additional 826,038 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB boosted its stake in Accenture by 47.5% during the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. Piper Sandler lifted their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. This represents 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 valued at $8,316,190 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $341.68 on Monday. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $365.74 and a 200-day simple moving average of $358.64. The company 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. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’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. On average, equities research 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.