Jones Financial Companies Lllp Boosts Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Jones Financial Companies Lllp grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 24.3% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 46,287 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 9,036 shares during the quarter. Jones Financial Companies Lllp’s holdings in Accenture were worth $16,283,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp raised its position in 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 worth $9,685,648,000 after acquiring an additional 471,792 shares during the period. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in 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 period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Accenture by 1.2% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after purchasing an additional 56,937 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB grew its holdings 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 valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.5% in the third quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after buying an additional 28,491 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have recently weighed in on ACN. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of 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. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.96.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $348.28 on Monday. 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 current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $217.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $367.28 and its 200-day moving average price is $358.10.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 28,866 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,232,419.68. The trade was a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.