National Pension Service Buys 125,496 Shares of Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY)

National Pension Service increased its stake in Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) by 22.5% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 683,874 shares of the software maker’s stock after acquiring an additional 125,496 shares during the period. National Pension Service owned about 0.26% of Workday worth $176,460,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Bristlecone Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Workday by 49.6% during the fourth quarter. Bristlecone Advisors LLC now owns 2,921 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $754,000 after acquiring an additional 968 shares during the last quarter. 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 purchasing an additional 1,978 shares during the period. Grafton Street Partners Fund LP purchased a new position in Workday during the 3rd quarter valued at about $4,424,000. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Co Ltd raised 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 valued at $7,791,000 after purchasing an additional 7,802 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its holdings in Workday by 20.5% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 702,990 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $182,753,000 after buying an additional 119,769 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 89.81% of the company’s stock.

Workday Stock Performance

WDAY stock opened at $271.09 on Thursday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $260.01 and its 200 day simple moving average is $254.24. The company has a current ratio of 2.05, a quick ratio of 2.05 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. Workday, Inc. has a 12-month low of $199.81 and a 12-month high of $298.50. The stock has a market capitalization 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 announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 25th. The software maker reported $0.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by ($1.27). Workday had a net margin of 19.86% and a return on equity of 6.13%. The business had revenue of $2.21 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.18 billion. As a group, research analysts forecast that Workday, Inc. will post 2.63 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently commented on WDAY. UBS Group upped their target price on Workday from $255.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday. Royal Bank of Canada boosted their price objective on shares of Workday from $320.00 to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. BNP Paribas raised shares of Workday to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Piper Sandler lifted their target price on shares of Workday from $270.00 to $290.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, JMP Securities reissued a “market outperform” rating and issued a $315.00 price target on shares of Workday in a research note on Thursday, February 6th. Ten equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $301.11.

Insider Activity

In related news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 472 shares of Workday stock in a transaction on Monday, January 13th. The stock was 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $8,789,681.92. The trade was a 1.32 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 70,003 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The stock was 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 directly owns 102,997 shares in the company, valued at $25,872,846.40. The trade was a 40.46 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 438,819 shares of company stock valued at $113,142,592 over the last three months. Insiders own 20.00% 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.