The Goldman Sachs Group Issues Positive Forecast for Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) Stock Price

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) had its price objective hoisted by stock analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group from $310.00 to $345.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a “buy” rating on the software maker’s stock. The Goldman Sachs Group’s target price would indicate a potential upside of 27.90% from the stock’s previous close.

WDAY has been the subject of several other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price objective on shares of Workday from $285.00 to $310.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Workday from $270.00 to $310.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday. JMP Securities restated a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 target price on shares of Workday in a research report on Thursday, February 6th. Morgan Stanley downgraded Workday from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and dropped their price objective for the stock from $330.00 to $275.00 in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Finally, Barclays lowered their target price on Workday from $314.00 to $305.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. Ten research 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. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $300.04.

Workday Price Performance

Shares of Workday stock traded up $14.52 on Wednesday, hitting $269.74. The company had a trading volume of 3,819,515 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,255,765. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $259.97 and a 200-day simple moving average of $254.12. Workday has a 52 week low of $199.81 and a 52 week high of $304.79. The company has a market cap of $71.75 billion, a PE ratio of 44.74, a PEG ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.35. 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 posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.75 by ($1.27). The firm had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.18 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. Research analysts expect that Workday will post 2.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other Workday news, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 70,090 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $254.53, for a total value of $17,840,007.70. Following the transaction, the insider now directly owns 102,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $26,215,826.41. This trade represents a 40.49 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 472 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 approximately $8,789,681.92. The trade was a 1.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 438,819 shares of company stock worth $113,142,592 in the last quarter. 20.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Workday

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Workday by 28.9% in the fourth 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 shares of Workday during the fourth quarter worth about $658,735,000. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Workday during the 4th quarter valued at $645,710,000. Parnassus Investments LLC increased its stake in shares of Workday by 562.2% in the 4th quarter. Parnassus Investments LLC now owns 2,447,735 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $631,589,000 after acquiring an additional 2,078,097 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Workday by 61.9% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,637,387 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,193,105,000 after buying an additional 1,772,223 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 89.81% of the company’s stock.

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.