Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. Buys 273 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 11.9% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 2,562 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 273 shares during the quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $901,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its position in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th 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. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

ACN stock opened at $348.27 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $366.41 and a 200-day moving average price of $358.30. Accenture plc has a 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $217.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) 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 analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. 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. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. 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. Finally, Piper Sandler boosted their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 19th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $388.96.

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.