Wall Street Zen Upgrades Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) to Buy

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) was upgraded by Wall Street Zen from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Saturday, Wall Street Zen reports.

WDAY has been the topic of a number of other reports. Bank of America upped their price target on shares of Workday from $140.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 19th. Royal Bank Of Canada lifted their price objective on Workday from $220.00 to $240.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 28th. Lake Street Capital set a $205.00 target price on Workday in a research note on Friday, August 14th. Sanford C. Bernstein upped their target price on Workday from $216.00 to $238.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 28th. Finally, Summit Redstone set a $275.00 price target on Workday in a research note on Wednesday, May 27th. Twenty analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, seventeen have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Workday has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $206.34.

Workday Stock Performance

WDAY stock opened at $195.79 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $166.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $142.60. Workday has a 52 week low of $110.36 and a 52 week high of $249.85. The stock has a market cap of $47.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.71, a P/E/G ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 1.08. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a current ratio of 0.91.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 27th. The software maker reported $2.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.61 by $0.14. Workday had a net margin of 12.32% and a return on equity of 20.95%. The firm had revenue of $2.65 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.64 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.21 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts anticipate that Workday will post 5.3 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Workday news, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 107,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $122.04, for a total value of $13,119,300.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 105,049 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,820,179.96. The trade was a 50.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Zane Rowe sold 6,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $143.70, for a total value of $862,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 288,460 shares in the company, valued at approximately $41,451,702. This represents a 2.04% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold 862,481 shares of company stock valued at $116,785,581 over the last three months. 18.64% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Workday

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Rakuten Securities Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Workday in the second quarter worth $25,000. Measured Wealth Private Client Group LLC acquired a new position in Workday in the 3rd quarter valued at $26,000. DT Investment Partners LLC bought a new position in Workday in the 4th quarter worth $27,000. LRI Investments LLC bought a new position in Workday in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Finally, JPL Wealth Management LLC acquired a new position in Workday during the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Institutional investors own 89.81% of the company’s stock.

Workday Company Profile

Workday, Inc (NASDAQ: WDAY) is a provider of cloud-based enterprise applications focused on human capital management (HCM) and financial management. Founded in 2005 by Dave Duffield and Aneel Bhusri following their tenure at PeopleSoft, the company develops software-as-a-service solutions that help organizations manage workforce and financial processes in a unified, cloud-native environment. Workday’s platform emphasizes continuous updates, data security, and a configurable architecture aimed at large and mid-sized enterprises.

The company’s product portfolio centers on Workday Human Capital Management and Workday Financial Management, with additional offerings for payroll, talent management, workforce planning and analytics.