Verdence Capital Advisors LLC Lowers Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Verdence Capital Advisors LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 17.6% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 6,613 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 1,417 shares during the period. Verdence Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $2,326,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its position in shares of Accenture by 62.2% during the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of several analyst reports. Wolfe Research raised shares of 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. Robert W. Baird reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. BMO Capital Markets boosted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.96.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were 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 trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Up 0.2 %

ACN stock opened at $345.84 on Wednesday. The company has a fifty day moving average of $366.68 and a 200-day moving average of $358.37. 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 market capitalization of $216.42 billion, a PE ratio of 29.01, a price-to-earnings-growth 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.

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

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.