Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) Shares Sold by Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lessened its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 4.2% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 67,714 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 3,002 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Accenture were worth $23,821,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 62.2% in the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC increased its stake 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 worth $31,000 after buying an additional 34 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $34,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

NYSE:ACN opened at $363.66 on Tuesday. Accenture plc has a one year low of $278.69 and a one year high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $227.58 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.51, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $367.61 and a 200 day moving average price of $356.99.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last posted its earnings results 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. 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 earned $3.27 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ACN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, December 20th. Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, December 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a report on Friday, December 6th. Wolfe Research raised shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price target for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $387.22.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total value of $91,514.72. Following the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. This trade represents a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at $4,677,625.26. This trade represents a 42.58 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190 in the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Accenture 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.