Essential Planning LLC. Purchases New Shares in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Essential Planning LLC. purchased a new stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 7,202 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,591,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 5.7% in the fourth quarter. Newbridge Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 518 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $182,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its holdings 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 worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. Tradition Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. Tradition Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,951 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $3,871,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. New England Professional Planning Group Inc. now owns 655 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $230,000 after purchasing an additional 29 shares during the period. Finally, TCW Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.3% during the third quarter. TCW Group Inc. now owns 11,501 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,065,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on ACN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, UBS Group increased their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fifteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.96.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other 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 value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. The trade was a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated 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 $1,845,916.50. This represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, 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 Down 1.1 %

ACN opened at $324.25 on Thursday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $364.36 and its 200 day simple moving average is $358.39. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $202.91 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.20, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate 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.