Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Bought by Nicholas Company Inc.

Nicholas Company Inc. raised its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 5.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 194,088 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 9,205 shares during the quarter. Accenture makes up 1.1% of Nicholas Company Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 27th biggest holding. Nicholas Company Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $68,278,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. State Street Corp increased its stake in Accenture by 1.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,685,648,000 after purchasing an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC increased its stake in Accenture by 378.9% in the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,941,219,000 after purchasing an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Accenture by 2.9% in the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,746,455,000 after purchasing an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Amundi increased its stake in Accenture by 27.9% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 3,790,069 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,353,909,000 after purchasing an additional 826,038 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Swedbank AB increased its stake in Accenture by 47.5% in the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,324,029,000 after purchasing an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Accenture Trading Up 0.4 %

Shares of ACN opened at $318.28 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $199.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.70, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $363.01 and a 200 day moving average price of $358.10.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several analyst reports. StockNews.com lowered Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.52.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares in the company, valued at $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’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 sale, 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture 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.