First Business Financial Services Inc. Decreases Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

First Business Financial Services Inc. lowered its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,167 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 62 shares during the period. First Business Financial Services Inc.’s holdings in Accenture were worth $1,466,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of ACN. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the fourth quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the third quarter worth about $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new position in Accenture during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its holdings in Accenture by 64.2% during the 4th 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. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. 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 target on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Accenture currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.96.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of ACN opened at $348.27 on Thursday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $366.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $358.30. The company has a current ratio of 1.47, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. Accenture plc has a 12 month low of $278.69 and a 12 month high of $398.35. The company has a market cap of $217.94 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

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 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 business had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $3.27 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at $3,073,892.12. This trade represents a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 23rd. The stock was 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 approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.