Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Downgraded by StockNews.com to "Hold"

StockNews.com cut shares of Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY - Free Report) from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research note released on Wednesday.

WDAY has been the topic of several other reports. Evercore ISI dropped their price target on Workday from $300.00 to $290.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, August 20th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Workday from $260.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Friday, August 23rd. KeyCorp raised their target price on Workday from $275.00 to $305.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Friday, August 23rd. DA Davidson upped their target price on Workday from $255.00 to $270.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Friday, August 23rd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on Workday from $300.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, September 19th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and twenty have assigned a buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $288.14.

Workday Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ WDAY traded up $11.81 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $268.87. 3,636,436 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,170,926. The company has a quick ratio of 2.04, a current ratio of 2.04 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $249.61 and a 200-day simple moving average of $237.47. Workday has a 1-year low of $199.81 and a 1-year high of $311.28. The firm has a market cap of $71.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.66 and a beta of 1.34.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 26th. The software maker reported $1.89 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.13. Workday had a return on equity of 6.21% and a net margin of 19.86%. The firm had revenue of $2.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.13 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.47 earnings per share. Workday's revenue was up 15.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Workday will post 2.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 70,003 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $251.20, for a total value of $17,584,753.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 102,997 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $25,872,846.40. The trade was a 40.46 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Richard Harry Sauer sold 3,134 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $235.78, for a total value of $738,934.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 85,795 shares in the company, valued at $20,228,745.10. This trade represents a 3.52 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 368,963 shares of company stock valued at $90,337,963. 20.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its holdings in shares of Workday by 79.1% during the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 2,302,008 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $514,637,000 after acquiring an additional 1,016,394 shares during the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its stake in shares of Workday by 17,345.2% in the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 930,701 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $208,068,000 after buying an additional 925,366 shares during the period. Two Sigma Advisers LP lifted its holdings in Workday by 1,094.2% during the third quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 613,800 shares of the software maker's stock worth $150,019,000 after acquiring an additional 562,400 shares in the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC lifted its holdings in Workday by 10.7% during the third quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 4,985,131 shares of the software maker's stock worth $1,218,415,000 after acquiring an additional 480,459 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Zurich Insurance Group Ltd FI bought a new stake in Workday during the third quarter worth about $78,003,000. Institutional investors own 89.81% 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.