Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) Short Interest Up 81.4% in January

Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) was the target of a large increase in short interest during the month of January. As of January 15th, there was short interest totalling 10,520,000 shares, an increase of 81.4% from the December 31st total of 5,800,000 shares. Based on an average trading volume of 3,160,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.3 days.

Workday Trading Down 1.9 %

Shares of Workday stock opened at $265.40 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $261.22 and a two-hundred day moving average of $248.48. Workday has a 12-month low of $199.81 and a 12-month high of $311.28. The company has a current ratio of 2.05, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The stock has a market cap of $70.60 billion, a PE ratio of 44.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.58 and a beta of 1.34.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 firm had revenue of $2.16 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.13 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. Workday’s quarterly revenue was up 15.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.47 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Workday will post 2.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 472 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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 transaction, 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 70,003 shares of Workday 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 sale, the insider now owns 102,997 shares in the company, valued at $25,872,846.40. This represents a 40.46 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 438,819 shares of company stock worth $113,142,592. 20.00% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in WDAY. Sanctuary Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Workday by 7.2% during the 3rd quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 29,633 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $7,934,000 after acquiring an additional 1,978 shares in the last quarter. Grafton Street Partners Fund LP acquired a new stake in shares of Workday in the third quarter valued at approximately $4,424,000. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd increased its stake in shares of 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 in the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in shares of Workday by 20.5% in the fourth 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 during the last quarter. Finally, Atria Investments Inc raised its stake in Workday by 19.3% in the 3rd quarter. Atria Investments Inc now owns 44,324 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $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.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Workday from $300.00 to $330.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, December 9th. Bank of America reduced their price objective on Workday from $310.00 to $285.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, November 27th. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and set a $270.00 target price (down from $285.00) on shares of Workday in a research report on Wednesday, November 27th. Loop Capital cut their target price on shares of Workday from $270.00 to $242.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, November 27th. Finally, Mizuho increased their price target on shares of Workday from $280.00 to $320.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twenty-one have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $292.25.

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.