Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC Has $8.74 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC increased its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 8.8% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 24,834 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,014 shares during the quarter. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $8,736,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 1.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 27,400,836 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $9,685,648,000 after buying an additional 471,792 shares during the last quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 378.9% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 5,491,736 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,941,219,000 after buying an additional 4,345,039 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 2.9% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,964,480 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,746,455,000 after buying an additional 140,726 shares during the last quarter. Swedbank AB lifted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 47.5% during the fourth quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 3,763,690 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,324,029,000 after buying an additional 1,212,011 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Accenture during the fourth quarter worth approximately $666,495,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently commented on ACN shares. Piper Sandler upped their price target on Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. StockNews.com upgraded Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group upgraded Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research note on Friday, December 6th. UBS Group upped their target price on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Wolfe Research upgraded Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.96.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of Accenture 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 directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of Accenture stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total value of $527,200.98. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. The trade was a 13.85 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock opened at $341.34 on Friday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $366.03 and its 200-day moving average is $358.18. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a quick ratio of 1.47 and a current ratio of 1.47. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.61 billion, a PE ratio of 28.64, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 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 analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $3.27 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS 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.