Dana Investment Advisors Inc. Sells 209 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Dana Investment Advisors Inc. cut its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.7% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 28,420 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 209 shares during the quarter. Dana Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $9,998,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new position in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during 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 during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have weighed in on ACN shares. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group lowered their target price on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value of $134,437.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $348.27 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The firm has a market capitalization of $217.94 billion, a PE ratio of 29.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $366.41 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $358.30.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its 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 firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during 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%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS 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.