Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Shares Gap Up – Should You Buy?

Shares of Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) gapped up before the market opened on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $259.73, but opened at $272.44. Workday shares last traded at $265.66, with a volume of 1,327,179 shares.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on WDAY shares. Oppenheimer restated an “outperform” rating and set a $300.00 price target on shares of Workday in a research note on Tuesday, December 3rd. Loop Capital dropped their target price on Workday from $270.00 to $242.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Piper Sandler reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $270.00 target price (down previously from $285.00) on shares of Workday in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Barclays dropped their target price on Workday from $314.00 to $305.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $300.00 target price on shares of Workday in a research report on Monday, November 25th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-one have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $292.25.

Workday Price Performance

The company has a quick ratio of 2.05, a current ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $71.87 billion, a PE ratio of 44.77, a PEG ratio of 4.73 and a beta of 1.35. The company has a 50-day moving average of $260.70 and a 200 day moving average of $249.53.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The software maker reported $1.89 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.13. The firm had revenue of $2.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.13 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 15.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.47 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts predict that Workday, Inc. will post 2.63 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Workday

In other news, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 70,003 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $251.20, for a total transaction of $17,584,753.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 102,997 shares in the company, valued at approximately $25,872,846.40. This represents a 40.46 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Sayan Chakraborty sold 5,498 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $250.78, for a total value of $1,378,788.44. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 121,100 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,369,458. This represents a 4.34 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 438,819 shares of company stock worth $113,142,592 in the last three months. 20.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Workday

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Sanctuary Advisors LLC grew its holdings 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 purchasing an additional 1,978 shares during the period. Grafton Street Partners Fund LP purchased a new position in shares of Workday during the 3rd quarter worth $4,424,000. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd lifted its stake in Workday by 32.4% during the 3rd quarter. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd now owns 31,878 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $7,791,000 after acquiring an additional 7,802 shares in the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its stake in Workday by 20.5% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 702,990 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $182,753,000 after acquiring an additional 119,769 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Atria Investments Inc lifted its stake in Workday by 19.3% during the 3rd quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 44,324 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $10,833,000 after acquiring an additional 7,175 shares in the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Workday Company Profile

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.