ING Groep NV Trims Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

ING Groep NV lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 26.0% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 150,865 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 52,898 shares during the period. ING Groep NV’s holdings in Accenture were worth $53,073,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Swedbank AB increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after purchasing an additional 363,401 shares in the last quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 29.9% during the 3rd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 20,589 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $7,278,000 after purchasing an additional 4,734 shares during the last quarter. Segment Wealth Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 0.4% during the 3rd quarter. Segment Wealth Management LLC now owns 42,984 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $15,194,000 after purchasing an additional 157 shares during the last quarter. Blossom Wealth Management boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 27.4% during the 3rd quarter. Blossom Wealth Management now owns 894 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $316,000 after purchasing an additional 192 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Albert D Mason Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $232,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,073,892.12. This represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. UBS Group upped their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Accenture Stock Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $390.72 on Thursday. The firm has a market capitalization of $244.51 billion, a PE ratio of 32.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.44 and a beta of 1.24. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $366.87 and its 200 day moving average price is $355.57. 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 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) 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 company 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 firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.