Investors Purchase High Volume of Put Options on Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY)

Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) saw some unusual options trading on Thursday. Stock traders bought 14,843 put options on the company. Thisisanincreaseofapproximately125% compared to the typical volume of 6,586 put options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CAO Mark S. Garfield sold 451 shares of Workday stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $234.86, for a total transaction of $105,921.86. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 42,977 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,093,578.22. The trade was a 1.04% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director George J. Still, Jr. sold 7,500 shares of Workday stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $248.41, for a total value of $1,863,075.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 67,500 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,767,675. This trade represents a 10.00% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 329,005 shares of company stock valued at $79,203,523 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 19.31% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in WDAY. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Workday in the 4th quarter valued at about $658,735,000. Nuveen LLC acquired a new position in Workday during the 1st quarter valued at about $456,341,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Workday during the 2nd quarter valued at about $442,702,000. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company boosted its stake in Workday by 60.7% during the 4th quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 3,722,255 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $960,454,000 after purchasing an additional 1,406,088 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Workday by 35.6% during the 1st quarter. Hotchkis & Wiley Capital Management LLC now owns 3,479,105 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $812,475,000 after purchasing an additional 913,613 shares during the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Workday Trading Down 0.5%

NASDAQ WDAY opened at $221.92 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $59.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 122.61, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.37 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a quick ratio of 2.07, a current ratio of 2.07 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.33. Workday has a twelve month low of $205.33 and a twelve month high of $294.00. The business’s fifty day moving average is $235.20 and its 200 day moving average is $244.18.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 22nd. The software maker reported $2.23 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.01 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $2.24 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.22 billion. Workday had a return on equity of 8.00% and a net margin of 5.60%. Workday’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.74 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Workday will post 2.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on WDAY. Morgan Stanley set a $255.00 target price on Workday and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, May 23rd. DA Davidson boosted their target price on Workday from $230.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, May 23rd. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on Workday from $360.00 to $325.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 22nd. Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on Workday from $310.00 to $275.00 and set a “hold” rating for the company in a report on Friday, May 23rd. Finally, Westpark Capital upped their price target on Workday from $315.00 to $328.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 23rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating, twenty have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $294.31.

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.