Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI Purchases 779 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI increased its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.8% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 44,044 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 779 shares during the quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI’s holdings in Accenture were worth $15,494,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of ACN. Swedbank AB raised its holdings in Accenture by 16.6% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $901,967,000 after buying an additional 363,401 shares during the period. XML Financial LLC raised its holdings in shares of Accenture by 3.2% in the third quarter. XML Financial LLC now owns 3,395 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,200,000 after purchasing an additional 106 shares during the last quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 49.6% during the third quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC now owns 1,101 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $389,000 after buying an additional 365 shares during the last quarter. Kennebec Savings Bank acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $75,000. Finally, Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in Accenture during the third quarter worth $104,924,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ACN has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Jefferies Financial Group reduced their price objective on shares of Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 21st. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Accenture Trading Down 2.0 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $335.34 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The firm has a market cap of $209.85 billion, a PE ratio of 28.13, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $365.40 and a 200-day moving average price of $358.67. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.91% and a net margin of 11.41%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter 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. Equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.48, for a total value of $885,136.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 28,866 shares in the company, valued at $10,232,419.68. This trade represents a 7.96 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.