State of Michigan Retirement System Increases Stock Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

State of Michigan Retirement System grew its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 0.1% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 182,238 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after buying an additional 100 shares during the period. State of Michigan Retirement System’s holdings in Accenture were worth $64,110,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its position in Accenture by 62.2% during the 4th quarter. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. now owns 73 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares during the period. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in Accenture during the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its position 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 purchasing an additional 34 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group raised shares of Accenture from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $370.00 to $420.00 in a research report on Friday, December 6th. Robert W. Baird reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research report on Tuesday, December 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Accenture from $422.00 to $429.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.96.

Insider Activity

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total value of $242,750.30. Following the completion of 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 ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 5,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $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. Insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $344.57 on Tuesday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $366.99 and its two-hundred day moving average is $358.24. Accenture plc has a 52 week low of $278.69 and a 52 week high of $398.35. The firm has a market capitalization of $215.63 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.91, a PEG ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly 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 net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company had revenue of $17.69 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $3.27 earnings per share. Accenture’s 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.

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.