National Pension Service Increases Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

National Pension Service raised its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.1% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 1,288,605 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 13,569 shares during the quarter. National Pension Service’s holdings in Accenture were worth $453,318,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA lifted its stake 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 purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 7.4% during the fourth quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares in the last quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC grew its position in shares of Accenture by 78.6% in the 3rd quarter. Schrum Private Wealth Management LLC now owns 11,448 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,047,000 after buying an additional 5,038 shares during the period. MQS Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,040,000. Finally, Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in Accenture by 70.6% during the third quarter. Concurrent Investment Advisors LLC now owns 35,591 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $12,581,000 after buying an additional 14,724 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $363.22 on Wednesday. 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 $367.73 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $357.32. The firm has a market cap of $227.30 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.47, 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 quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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%. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture 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 sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, 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.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently commented on ACN. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price target for the company. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

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.