Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Shares Gap Down Following Analyst Downgrade

Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) shares gapped down before the market opened on Wednesday after Loop Capital lowered their price target on the stock from $270.00 to $242.00. The stock had previously closed at $270.19, but opened at $237.50. Loop Capital currently has a hold rating on the stock. Workday shares last traded at $251.01, with a volume of 7,090,630 shares changing hands.

Several other brokerages have also recently issued reports on WDAY. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Workday from $260.00 to $300.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, August 23rd. Canaccord Genuity Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $300.00 target price on shares of Workday in a research report on Friday, September 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Workday from $300.00 to $305.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 19th. Bank of America reduced their price objective on shares of Workday from $310.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, Morgan Stanley reduced their price objective on shares of Workday from $325.00 to $315.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, August 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and twenty-one have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $288.14.

Insider Buying and Selling at Workday

In related news, Director George J. Still, Jr. sold 7,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.45, for a total transaction of $1,915,875.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 90,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,990,500. This represents a 7.69 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 66,492 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $261.20, for a total transaction of $17,367,710.40. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 102,997 shares in the company, valued at approximately $26,902,816.40. This represents a 39.23 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 359,954 shares of company stock worth $88,742,132 in the last ninety days. 20.00% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of WDAY. ORG Partners LLC grew its position in Workday by 3,717.9% during the 2nd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 3,207 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $721,000 after purchasing an additional 3,123 shares during the last quarter. Grafton Street Partners Fund LP purchased a new position in Workday during the 3rd quarter worth $4,424,000. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd grew its position 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 purchasing an additional 7,802 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in Workday by 7.4% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 1,719,976 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $384,518,000 after purchasing an additional 118,180 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Atria Investments Inc grew its position 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 purchasing an additional 7,175 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.81% of the company’s stock.

Workday Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 2.04 and a current ratio of 2.04. The company has a market capitalization of $66.52 billion, a PE ratio of 47.07, a P/E/G ratio of 5.31 and a beta of 1.35. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $248.52 and its 200-day simple moving average is $237.21.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, November 26th. The software maker reported $1.89 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.76 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $2.16 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.13 billion. Workday had a net margin of 19.59% and a return on equity of 5.34%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 15.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.47 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Workday, Inc. will post 2.4 earnings per share for the current year.

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.