Sandy Spring Bank Has $15.08 Million Position in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Sandy Spring Bank reduced its position in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) by 1.7% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 42,878 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock after selling 753 shares during the quarter. Sandy Spring Bank’s holdings in Accenture were worth $15,084,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Baldwin Wealth Partners LLC MA raised its stake 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 valued at $22,314,000 after purchasing an additional 3,883 shares during the period. Davidson Trust Co. raised its stake in Accenture by 7.4% during the 4th quarter. Davidson Trust Co. now owns 2,307 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $812,000 after purchasing an additional 158 shares during the period. Franklin Street Advisors Inc. NC raised its stake in Accenture by 126.8% during 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 purchasing an additional 22,391 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in Accenture by 1.2% during 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 purchasing an additional 56,937 shares during the period. Finally, China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Accenture by 37.5% in the fourth quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 3,094 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,088,000 after acquiring an additional 843 shares during the last quarter. 75.14% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $380.00 to $372.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Accenture from $450.00 to $455.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 20th. BMO Capital Markets dropped their price target on shares of Accenture from $425.00 to $370.00 and set a “market perform” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Accenture from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Baird R W raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $384.45.

Accenture Stock Up 0.1 %

ACN stock opened at $324.52 on Thursday. 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 52-week low of $278.69 and a 52-week high of $398.35. The company has a 50-day moving average of $361.19 and a two-hundred day moving average of $357.78. The stock has a market capitalization of $203.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.22, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.24.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $17.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $3.27 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Accenture

In related news, insider Angela Beatty sold 375 shares of the 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 completion of the sale, the insider now owns 5,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,845,916.50. This trade represents a 6.79 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 232 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.46, for a total transaction of $91,514.72. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now owns 8,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,516,610.90. The trade was a 2.54 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

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.