Kensington Investment Counsel LLC Buys 893 Shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Kensington Investment Counsel LLC raised its stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 6.7% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 14,185 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 893 shares during the period. Accenture comprises approximately 2.1% of Kensington Investment Counsel LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 12th largest position. Kensington Investment Counsel LLC’s holdings in Accenture were worth $4,990,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. boosted its position 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 worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 28 shares in the last quarter. MidAtlantic Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture in the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Finally, POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its position in shares of Accenture by 64.2% in 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 in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 75.14% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have commented on ACN. Stifel Nicolaus lowered their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $380.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Accenture from $370.00 to $396.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 16th. StockNews.com cut Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 11th. BMO Capital Markets lifted their price target on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler lowered their price target on Accenture from $429.00 to $396.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $388.04.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the business’s 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 transaction, the insider now directly owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at $1,845,916.50. The trade was a 6.79 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total value of $3,468,574.71. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 11,858 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of Accenture stock opened at $326.25 on Tuesday. 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 twelve month low of $278.69 and a twelve month high of $398.35. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $362.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $358.14. The firm has a market cap of $204.16 billion, a PE ratio of 27.37, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last announced 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 firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $17.15 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $3.27 EPS. Accenture’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.