Howard Capital Management Inc. Acquires New Holdings in Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN)

Howard Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm acquired 4,351 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,531,000.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Swedbank AB raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 16.6% in the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 2,551,679 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $901,967,000 after acquiring an additional 363,401 shares in the last quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. raised its stake in shares of Accenture by 4.7% in the 3rd quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 25,853 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock valued at $9,139,000 after acquiring an additional 1,160 shares in the last quarter. Country Club Bank boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 8.0% during the 3rd quarter. Country Club Bank now owns 3,720 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $1,301,000 after buying an additional 274 shares during the period. Allworth Financial LP boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 15.5% during the 3rd quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 11,823 shares of the information technology services provider’s stock worth $4,179,000 after buying an additional 1,587 shares during the period. Finally, Lyell Wealth Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Accenture during the 3rd quarter worth $209,000. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on ACN shares. StockNews.com raised shares of Accenture from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Robert W. Baird reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $370.00 price objective on shares of Accenture in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Accenture from $335.00 to $380.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 31st. BMO Capital Markets increased their price objective on Accenture from $390.00 to $425.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, BNP Paribas cut Accenture from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $375.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, October 30th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and sixteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $387.22.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 8,793 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $394.47, for a total transaction of $3,468,574.71. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 11,858 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,677,625.26. This represents a 42.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CAO Melissa A. Burgum sold 1,487 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $354.54, for a total transaction of $527,200.98. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 9,247 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,278,431.38. This represents a 13.85 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 22,280 shares of company stock worth $8,316,190 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Accenture Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ACN opened at $364.35 on Monday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $367.48 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $356.65. 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 capitalization of $228.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.41 and a beta of 1.24. 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 (NYSE:ACN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The information technology services provider reported $3.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.43 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $17.69 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $17.15 billion. Accenture had a net margin of 11.41% and a return on equity of 26.91%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 9.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $3.27 EPS. As a group, analysts predict that Accenture plc will post 12.73 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.