Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Purchased by First National Advisers LLC

First National Advisers LLC boosted its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 2.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 9,386 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 246 shares during the quarter. First National Advisers LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $3,302,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp lifted its position in Accenture by 1.8% during the 3rd 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 lifted its position in 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 acquiring an additional 4,345,039 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 2.9% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after acquiring an additional 140,726 shares during the period. Amundi lifted its position in Accenture by 27.9% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,353,909,000 after acquiring an additional 826,038 shares during the period. Finally, Swedbank AB lifted its position in Accenture by 47.5% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after acquiring an additional 1,212,011 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % 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. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Accenture stock opened at $318.28 on Friday. 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 stock has a fifty day moving average of $363.01 and a two-hundred day moving average of $358.10. The company has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.70, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35.

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 business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. On average, analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on ACN shares. 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. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. BMO Capital Markets increased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.52.

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.