Commonwealth Equity Services LLC Sells 468 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Commonwealth Equity Services LLC decreased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.2% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 196,705 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 468 shares during the quarter. Commonwealth Equity Services LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $69,199,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in Accenture in the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price target on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $388.96.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN stock opened at $316.48 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $198.05 billion, a PE ratio of 26.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $363.72 and its 200 day simple moving average is $358.10.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

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

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.