Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Shares Gap Up After Analyst Upgrade

Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) shares gapped up prior to trading on Wednesday after UBS Group raised their price target on the stock from $255.00 to $285.00. The stock had previously closed at $255.22, but opened at $279.99. UBS Group currently has a neutral rating on the stock. Workday shares last traded at $273.01, with a volume of 2,207,231 shares changing hands.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. JMP Securities restated a “market outperform” rating and issued a $315.00 price target on shares of Workday in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $300.00 price objective on shares of Workday in a research report on Wednesday. Barclays decreased their target price on Workday from $314.00 to $305.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Citigroup cut their price target on shares of Workday from $287.00 to $270.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada increased their price objective on shares of Workday from $320.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $301.11.

Insider Buying and Selling at Workday

In other news, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 57,000 shares of Workday stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $275.31, for a total transaction of $15,692,670.00. Following the sale, the insider now owns 284,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $78,188,040. The trade was a 16.72 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 472 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.24, for a total value of $117,169.28. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer now owns 35,408 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,789,681.92. The trade was a 1.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 438,819 shares of company stock worth $113,142,592 in the last ninety days. 20.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Workday

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of WDAY. Crews Bank & Trust purchased a new position in Workday during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Roxbury Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Workday in the 4th quarter worth approximately $25,000. Avion Wealth boosted its position in shares of Workday by 452.6% during the 4th quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 105 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 86 shares during the period. Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new stake in Workday in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Finally, TCTC Holdings LLC purchased a new stake in Workday in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $35,000. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Workday Stock Up 6.2 %

The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $260.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $254.24. The company has a market capitalization of $72.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.96, a PEG ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.35. 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 (NASDAQ:WDAY) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.75 by ($1.27). Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. The firm had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. As a group, equities analysts predict that Workday, Inc. will post 2.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Workday

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.