UBS Group Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Stock

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) had its price objective raised by UBS Group from $255.00 to $285.00 in a research report report published on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a neutral rating on the software maker’s stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the company. Citigroup dropped their price target on Workday from $287.00 to $270.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Workday from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the company from $265.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Guggenheim reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Workday in a research report on Wednesday. Scotiabank began coverage on shares of Workday in a research report on Monday, November 18th. They issued a “sector outperform” rating and a $340.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Workday from $270.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $301.11.

Workday Price Performance

Shares of WDAY stock opened at $271.09 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $72.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.96, a P/E/G ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.35. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $260.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $254.24. Workday has a one year low of $199.81 and a one year high of $298.50. 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 announced its earnings results on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by ($1.27). The firm had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.18 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. On average, analysts expect that Workday will post 2.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 56,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $246.42, for a total value of $13,799,520.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 60,000 shares in the company, valued at $14,785,200. This represents a 48.28 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 472 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, January 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.24, for a total transaction of $117,169.28. Following the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 35,408 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,789,681.92. This represents a 1.32 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 438,819 shares of company stock valued at $113,142,592. 20.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Workday

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Bristlecone Advisors LLC raised its position in Workday by 49.6% in the 4th quarter. Bristlecone Advisors LLC now owns 2,921 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $754,000 after buying an additional 968 shares during the last quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Workday by 7.2% during the 3rd quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 29,633 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $7,934,000 after acquiring an additional 1,978 shares in the last quarter. Grafton Street Partners Fund LP acquired a new stake in shares of Workday in the third quarter valued at approximately $4,424,000. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd lifted its position in shares of Workday by 32.4% in the third quarter. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd now owns 31,878 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $7,791,000 after purchasing an additional 7,802 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of Workday by 20.5% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 702,990 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $182,753,000 after purchasing an additional 119,769 shares in the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.