Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Stake Raised by Signaturefd LLC

Signaturefd LLC grew its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 14,485 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 489 shares during the period. Signaturefd LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $5,096,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA grew its position in Accenture by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after buying an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. grew its holdings in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $812,000 after acquiring an additional 158 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC raised its position in shares of Accenture by 126.8% during the fourth quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $14,090,000 after purchasing an additional 22,391 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.2% during 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. Finally, China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 37.5% in the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after purchasing an additional 843 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

ACN opened at $318.28 on Monday. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $363.01 and a 200-day moving average of $358.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $199.17 billion, a PE ratio of 26.70, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 quarter last year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, 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 value of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on ACN. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. UBS Group boosted their target price 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. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.52.

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.