SNS Financial Group LLC Decreases Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

SNS Financial Group LLC lessened its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.2% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 1,436 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 95 shares during the quarter. SNS Financial Group LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $505,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 378.9% in the third 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 in the last quarter. Swedbank AB increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in 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 purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. grew its stake in Accenture by 2,666.5% during the fourth quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 715,219 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $251,607,000 after acquiring an additional 689,366 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP purchased a new position in Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $204,895,000. Finally, International Assets Investment Management LLC grew its stake in Accenture by 37,788.5% during the third quarter. International Assets Investment Management LLC now owns 510,358 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $180,401,000 after acquiring an additional 509,011 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective 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. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Piper Sandler boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $390.72 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $366.87 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $355.57. The company has a market cap of $244.51 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.78, a PEG ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business 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 previous year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.