ING Groep NV Lowers Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

ING Groep NV reduced its position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 26.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 150,865 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 52,898 shares during the period. ING Groep NV’s holdings in Accenture were worth $53,073,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Finally, Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Accenture by 607.1% in the third quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC now owns 99 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 85 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on ACN. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted 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. BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, October 30th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total value of $1,723,205.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now directly owns 20,526 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. This represents a 18.79 % 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 in the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of NYSE ACN opened at $390.72 on Thursday. 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 market capitalization of $244.51 billion, a PE ratio of 32.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $366.87 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $355.57. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced 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 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 business’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, 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.