Athena Investment Management Sells 100 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Athena Investment Management decreased its holdings in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 12.4% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 709 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 100 shares during the quarter. Athena Investment Management’s holdings in Accenture were worth $249,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Onefund LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. Onefund LLC now owns 1,696 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $597,000 after acquiring an additional 52 shares in the last quarter. Nixon Peabody Trust Co. raised its holdings in Accenture by 3.9% in the 4th quarter. Nixon Peabody Trust Co. now owns 1,382 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $486,000 after acquiring an additional 52 shares in the last quarter. Middleton & Co. Inc. MA raised its holdings in Accenture by 7.0% in the 4th quarter. Middleton & Co. Inc. MA now owns 1,675 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $589,000 after acquiring an additional 110 shares in the last quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Accenture by 70.5% in the 4th quarter. Jacobi Capital Management LLC now owns 5,193 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,827,000 after acquiring an additional 2,147 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Proffitt & Goodson Inc. raised its holdings in Accenture by 2.5% in the 4th quarter. Proffitt & Goodson Inc. now owns 1,409 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $496,000 after acquiring an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Accenture

In other Accenture news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, 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 shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total transaction of $134,437.50. Following the sale, 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on ACN shares. Stifel Nicolaus cut their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 target price on shares of Accenture in a report on Tuesday, December 3rd. BMO Capital Markets raised their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group dropped their price target on Accenture from $385.00 to $355.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 21st. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $388.96.

Accenture Trading Down 2.4 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $348.28 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.47, a current ratio of 1.47 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17. The stock has a market cap of $217.95 billion, a PE ratio of 29.22, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a 50 day moving average of $367.28 and a 200-day moving average of $357.56. Accenture plc has a 12-month low of $278.69 and a 12-month high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current 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.