Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT Acquires 12,417 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT increased its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 36.1% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 46,822 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 12,417 shares during the quarter. Bradley Foster & Sargent Inc. CT’s holdings in Accenture were worth $16,472,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Cordatus Wealth Management LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 1.1% during the fourth quarter. Cordatus Wealth Management LLC now owns 9,931 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $3,493,000 after buying an additional 107 shares during the period. Centricity Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $63,000. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 7.3% in the 4th quarter. Legacy Capital Group California Inc. now owns 1,155 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $406,000 after purchasing an additional 79 shares in the last quarter. Nicholson Wealth Management Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 77.0% in the 4th quarter. Nicholson Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 4,231 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,488,000 after buying an additional 1,840 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Mattern Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 2.3% in the fourth quarter. Mattern Capital Management LLC now owns 28,673 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $10,087,000 after acquiring an additional 637 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. BNP Paribas downgraded Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Trading Down 1.3 %

NYSE ACN opened at $385.06 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $367.37 and a 200 day moving average of $355.77. The company has a market capitalization of $240.97 billion, a PE ratio of 32.30, a P/E/G ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted 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. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The business’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. Research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

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.