Waverton Investment Management Ltd Purchases 500 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Waverton Investment Management Ltd increased its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 76.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 1,156 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 500 shares during the quarter. Waverton Investment Management Ltd’s holdings in Accenture were worth $407,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. State Street Corp increased its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $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 boosted its holdings in Accenture by 378.9% during the third 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 valued at $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd 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 period. Swedbank AB raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.5% in 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 buying an additional 1,212,011 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stifel Financial Corp boosted its stake in Accenture by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 1,892,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $668,974,000 after buying an additional 28,491 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. UBS Group lifted 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. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Down 5.3 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $364.35 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market cap of $228.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.57, a P/E/G ratio of 3.41 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50 day moving average of $367.48 and a 200-day moving average of $356.65. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the 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 directly 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 transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, 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. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.