Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Raised to “Hold” at Piper Sandler

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) was upgraded by Piper Sandler to a “hold” rating in a note issued to investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

A number of other research firms also recently weighed in on WDAY. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c)” rating on shares of Workday in a research report on Wednesday, October 8th. Macquarie reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Workday in a report on Wednesday, November 26th. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price objective on shares of Workday in a research report on Wednesday, November 26th. Zacks Research cut Workday from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, October 30th. Finally, Citigroup decreased their target price on Workday from $261.00 to $247.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 26th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-four have assigned a Buy rating and thirteen have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $277.00.

Workday Trading Up 5.6%

Shares of NASDAQ:WDAY opened at $170.15 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $44.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 71.49, a PEG ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.13. Workday has a 12 month low of $156.87 and a 12 month high of $283.68. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $204.95 and its 200 day simple moving average is $222.17. The company has a quick ratio of 1.83, a current ratio of 1.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, November 25th. The software maker reported $2.32 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.17 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $2.43 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.42 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 10.50% and a net margin of 6.95%.Workday’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.89 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Workday will post 2.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Zane Rowe sold 6,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $208.75, for a total transaction of $1,252,500.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 159,158 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $33,224,232.50. The trade was a 3.63% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Carl M. Eschenbach sold 3,125 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $210.00, for a total value of $656,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 17,097 shares in the company, valued at $3,590,370. This trade represents a 15.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 370,321 shares of company stock valued at $78,866,401 over the last three months. 19.31% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Workday

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. AlphaQuest LLC lifted its stake in shares of Workday by 636.7% in the 2nd quarter. AlphaQuest LLC now owns 1,886 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $453,000 after purchasing an additional 1,630 shares during the period. PKO Investment Management Joint Stock Co bought a new stake in Workday in the third quarter worth approximately $1,805,000. Phoenix Financial Ltd. acquired a new position in Workday in the third quarter valued at approximately $2,000,000. Rakuten Investment Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Workday during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $124,718,000. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Workday during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $442,702,000. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Workday

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.