Motco Reduces Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Motco reduced its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.6% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 29,048 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 190 shares during the period. Motco’s holdings in Accenture were worth $10,219,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the third quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its holdings 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 valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the fourth quarter worth about $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE ACN opened at $356.96 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1-year low of $278.69 and a 1-year high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $223.38 billion, a PE ratio of 29.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $367.64 and its 200-day simple moving average is $357.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its 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. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Accenture news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares in the company, valued at $3,278,431.38. This trade represents a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

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.