Davidson Trust Co. Grows Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Davidson Trust Co. increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 7.4% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 158 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $812,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ACN. Swedbank AB lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 16.6% during the 3rd 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 period. AA Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $270,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 10.9% during the 3rd quarter. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC now owns 202,330 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $71,520,000 after purchasing an additional 19,958 shares during the last quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.5% during the 3rd quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. now owns 23,006 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $8,132,000 after purchasing an additional 570 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Violich Capital Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Accenture by 2.8% during the 3rd quarter. Violich Capital Management Inc. now owns 36,977 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $13,071,000 after purchasing an additional 1,000 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $387.99 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The company has a market cap of $242.80 billion, a PE ratio of 32.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $365.29 and a 200 day simple moving average of $354.45.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on shares of 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 target price on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight research 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 an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. 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.