Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators Grows Stock Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators grew its stake in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 3.0% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 2,435 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 72 shares during the quarter. Deseret Mutual Benefit Administrators’ holdings in Accenture were worth $857,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new position in Accenture in the 3rd quarter valued at about $25,000. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. POM Investment Strategies LLC grew its position in Accenture by 64.2% in the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 87 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 34 shares during the period. Retirement Wealth Solutions LLC purchased a new position in Accenture in the fourth quarter worth approximately $34,000. Finally, Berbice Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Accenture during the fourth quarter worth $35,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Down 5.3 %

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $364.35 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. Accenture plc has a fifty-two week low of $278.69 and a fifty-two week high of $398.35. The stock has a market cap of $228.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.46 and a beta of 1.24. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $367.48 and its 200 day moving average price is $356.12.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The business had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $3.27 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Accenture

In other news, CFO Angie Y. Park sold 685 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.38, for a total transaction of $242,750.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 8,674 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,073,892.12. The trade was a 7.32 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the 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 completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, 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. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock valued at $8,316,190. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ACN has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. UBS Group raised their price objective on Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Wolfe Research upgraded shares of Accenture from a “peer perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $425.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Wednesday, January 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 16th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their price target on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Accenture presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $387.22.

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.