Norges Bank Makes New $645.71 Million Investment in Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY)

Norges Bank bought a new stake in Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 2,502,460 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $645,710,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in WDAY. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Workday by 28.9% in 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 acquiring an additional 4,517,272 shares in the last quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC increased its holdings in shares of Workday by 562.2% in the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 2,447,735 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $631,589,000 after purchasing an additional 2,078,097 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Workday in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $194,679,000. Two Sigma Advisers LP raised its position in Workday by 1,094.2% in the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 613,800 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $150,019,000 after purchasing an additional 562,400 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Workday by 62.8% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,360,002 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $350,921,000 after buying an additional 524,799 shares in the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on WDAY. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their target price on Workday from $320.00 to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 26th. Mizuho raised their target price on shares of Workday from $280.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Workday to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Guggenheim restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Workday in a report on Wednesday, February 26th. Finally, Daiwa America raised shares of Workday to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Workday presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $300.36.

Insider Activity

In other Workday news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 472 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $248.24, for a total value of $117,169.28. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 35,408 shares in the company, valued at $8,789,681.92. This trade represents a 1.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 56,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $261.75, for a total transaction of $14,658,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 172,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $45,021,000. The trade was a 24.56 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 487,145 shares of company stock valued at $123,289,438. Insiders own 20.00% of the company’s stock.

Workday Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:WDAY opened at $244.55 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $65.05 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.56, a P/E/G ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.38. Workday, Inc. has a 12 month low of $199.81 and a 12 month high of $294.00. The company has a 50 day moving average of $256.89 and a 200 day moving average of $254.93. The company has a current ratio of 2.05, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.75 by ($1.27). The company had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.18 billion. Workday had a net margin of 19.86% and a return on equity of 6.13%. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Workday, Inc. will post 2.63 EPS 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.