Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) Receives Average Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” by the thirty analysts that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokerages that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $302.14.

Several research firms have recently weighed in on WDAY. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Workday from $255.00 to $285.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on Workday from $300.00 to $314.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on Workday from $285.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. StockNews.com downgraded Workday from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Finally, Citigroup decreased their target price on Workday from $287.00 to $270.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 16th.

Workday Stock Down 3.9 %

Shares of Workday stock opened at $260.57 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $259.89 and a 200-day simple moving average of $254.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a current ratio of 2.05 and a quick ratio of 2.05. Workday has a 52-week low of $199.81 and a 52-week high of $298.50. The firm has a market cap of $69.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.21, a P/E/G ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.35.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by ($1.27). The firm had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. On average, equities research analysts expect that Workday will post 2.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Workday news, Director Wayne A.I. Frederick sold 1,829 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $253.09, for a total transaction of $462,901.61. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 6,845 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,732,401.05. This represents a 21.09 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 70,003 shares of Workday stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $251.20, for a total value of $17,584,753.60. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 102,997 shares in the company, valued at approximately $25,872,846.40. This represents a 40.46 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 433,321 shares of company stock valued at $111,763,803 over the last quarter. 20.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Workday

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Workday by 28.9% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 20,142,800 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $5,197,447,000 after purchasing an additional 4,517,272 shares during the period. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Workday during the fourth quarter valued at about $658,735,000. Norges Bank bought a new position in Workday in the fourth quarter worth about $645,710,000. Parnassus Investments LLC lifted its holdings in Workday by 562.2% in the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 2,447,735 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $631,589,000 after buying an additional 2,078,097 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Workday by 61.9% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,637,387 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,193,105,000 after buying an additional 1,772,223 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 89.81% of the company’s stock.

Workday Company Profile

Workday, Inc provides enterprise cloud applications in the United States and internationally. Its applications help its customers to plan, execute, analyze, and extend to other applications and environments to manage their business and operations. The company offers a suite of financial management applications to maintain accounting information in the general ledger; manage financial processes, such as payables and receivables; identify real-time financial, operational, and management insights; enhance financial consolidation; reduce time-to-close; promote internal control and auditability; and achieve consistency across finance operations.