Woodline Partners LP Makes New Investment in Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY)

Woodline Partners LP bought a new position in shares of Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 69,093 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $17,828,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDAY. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Workday by 28.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 20,142,800 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,197,447,000 after purchasing an additional 4,517,272 shares during the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in Workday during the fourth quarter worth $658,735,000. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Workday during the fourth quarter worth $645,710,000. Parnassus Investments LLC lifted its stake in Workday by 562.2% during the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 2,447,735 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $631,589,000 after purchasing an additional 2,078,097 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Workday by 61.9% during 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 purchasing an additional 1,772,223 shares during the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Workday Stock Performance

Shares of Workday stock opened at $268.54 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 2.05, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $242.42 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $254.01. Workday, Inc. has a 1-year low of $199.81 and a 1-year high of $294.00. The company has a market cap of $71.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.53, a PEG ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.30.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last issued its quarterly 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). Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. The business had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. As a group, analysts anticipate that Workday, Inc. will post 2.63 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on the company. Scotiabank cut their target price on Workday from $355.00 to $305.00 and set a “sector outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Redburn Atlantic began coverage on Workday in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. They issued a “neutral” rating for the company. UBS Group increased their price target on Workday from $255.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 26th. Westpark Capital began coverage on Workday in a research note on Tuesday, May 6th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $315.00 price target for the company. Finally, Daiwa America upgraded Workday to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-one have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $293.62.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Workday news, CEO Carl M. Eschenbach sold 3,125 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $234.61, for a total transaction of $733,156.25. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 10,847 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,544,814.67. This trade represents a 22.37% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 66,455 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $259.52, for a total value of $17,246,401.60. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now owns 102,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,729,781.44. This represents a 39.22% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 321,724 shares of company stock worth $77,976,126. Company insiders own 19.31% of the company’s stock.

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.