Purkiss Capital Advisors LLC Buys Shares of 811 Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Purkiss Capital Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 811 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $285,000.

A number of other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Duncker Streett & Co. Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Duncker Streett & Co. Inc. now owns 12,239 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $4,306,000 after purchasing an additional 82 shares in the last quarter. Onefund LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Onefund LLC now owns 1,696 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $597,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares in the last quarter. Nixon Peabody Trust Co. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 3.9% during the fourth quarter. Nixon Peabody Trust Co. now owns 1,382 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $486,000 after purchasing an additional 52 shares in the last quarter. Middleton & Co. Inc. MA raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.0% during the fourth quarter. Middleton & Co. Inc. MA now owns 1,675 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $589,000 after purchasing an additional 110 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jacobi Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 70.5% during the fourth quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC now owns 5,193 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,827,000 after purchasing an additional 2,147 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.96.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $348.28 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 firm has a market cap of $217.95 billion, a PE ratio of 29.22, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $367.28 and its 200 day moving average price is $357.83.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.