Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Bank OZK

Bank OZK reduced its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 80.4% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 830 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 3,397 shares during the quarter. Bank OZK’s holdings in Accenture were worth $292,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the 4th quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter valued at about $34,000. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently weighed in on ACN. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. BMO Capital Markets boosted their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $348.28 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $217.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $367.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $357.56. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.