Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Given “Buy” Rating at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their buy rating on shares of Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) in a report published on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a $300.00 target price on the software maker’s stock.

WDAY has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Mizuho boosted their price objective on shares of Workday from $280.00 to $320.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Guggenheim raised shares of Workday from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. BNP Paribas upgraded Workday to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 14th. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Workday from $287.00 to $270.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, January 16th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of Workday from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $265.00 to $300.00 in a research note on Wednesday, January 8th. Ten analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $301.11.

Workday Stock Up 6.2 %

Workday stock opened at $271.09 on Wednesday. Workday has a one year low of $199.81 and a one year high of $298.50. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $260.01 and a 200 day moving average of $254.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a current ratio of 2.05. The stock has a market cap of $72.11 billion, a PE ratio of 44.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.35.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.75 by ($1.27). The business had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.18 billion. Workday had a net margin of 19.86% and a return on equity of 6.13%. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Workday will post 2.63 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Workday

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Workday

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of WDAY. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Workday by 28.9% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 20,142,800 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,197,447,000 after buying an additional 4,517,272 shares in the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in Workday during the 4th quarter worth about $658,735,000. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Workday in the 4th quarter valued at about $645,710,000. Parnassus Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Workday by 562.2% during the fourth quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 2,447,735 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $631,589,000 after buying an additional 2,078,097 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Workday by 61.9% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,637,387 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $1,193,105,000 after acquiring an additional 1,772,223 shares in the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.