Long Road Investment Counsel LLC Has $6.11 Million Stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Long Road Investment Counsel LLC lowered its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.3% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 17,370 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 600 shares during the quarter. Accenture comprises approximately 2.5% of Long Road Investment Counsel LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th biggest position. Long Road Investment Counsel LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $6,111,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its position in Accenture by 6.5% during the 4th quarter. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA now owns 63,429 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the last quarter. Davidson Trust Co. grew its stake in shares of Accenture by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after buying an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC lifted its position in Accenture by 126.8% in the 4th quarter. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC now owns 40,051 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $14,090,000 after acquiring an additional 22,391 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in Accenture by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 4,823,754 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,705,100,000 after acquiring an additional 56,937 shares in the last quarter. Finally, China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Accenture by 37.5% in the 4th quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $1,088,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares in the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Accenture Trading Up 2.3 %

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $326.25 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.47 and a quick ratio of 1.47. Accenture plc has a 1 year low of $278.69 and a 1 year high of $398.35. The company has a market capitalization of $204.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.37, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $362.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $358.14.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share 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 company had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on ACN. StockNews.com cut shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Baird R W upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday. Piper Sandler cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $388.04.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $358.50, for a total value 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 represents a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 4,750 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $362.78, for a total transaction of $1,723,205.00. Following the sale, the general counsel now owns 20,526 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,446,422.28. This trade represents a 18.79 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.