M & L Capital Management Ltd Makes New Investment in Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY)

M & L Capital Management Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY) in the first quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor bought 3,300 shares of the software maker’s stock, valued at approximately $771,000. Workday comprises about 0.2% of M & L Capital Management Ltd’s holdings, making the stock its 15th biggest holding.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of WDAY. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Workday by 28.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 20,142,800 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $5,197,447,000 after acquiring an additional 4,517,272 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Workday by 61.9% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,637,387 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $1,193,105,000 after purchasing an additional 1,772,223 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its position in shares of 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. Brown Advisory Inc. increased its position in shares of Workday by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Brown Advisory Inc. now owns 3,530,701 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $911,027,000 after purchasing an additional 52,104 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd lifted its position in Workday by 6.5% in the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 2,963,124 shares of the software maker’s stock worth $764,575,000 after buying an additional 181,899 shares during the last quarter. 89.81% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director George J. Still, Jr. sold 7,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $241.33, for a total transaction of $1,809,975.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 75,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $18,099,750. This represents a 9.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder David A. Duffield sold 81,275 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $214.68, for a total value of $17,448,117.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 102,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,111,395.96. The trade was a 44.11% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 318,793 shares of company stock worth $77,122,102. 20.00% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

WDAY has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Loop Capital cut their price objective on shares of Workday from $285.00 to $250.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 23rd. JMP Securities reiterated a “market outperform” rating and set a $315.00 price target on shares of Workday in a report on Friday, May 23rd. Citigroup downgraded shares of Workday from a “neutral” rating to a “mixed” rating in a research note on Friday, May 16th. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on Workday from $300.00 to $314.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group cut their target price on Workday from $350.00 to $325.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 31st. Nine equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eighteen have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $293.54.

Workday Stock Up 0.8%

Shares of NASDAQ WDAY opened at $241.76 on Friday. 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 capitalization of $64.31 billion, a PE ratio of 40.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.55 and a beta of 1.30. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $241.70 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $253.71. Workday, Inc. has a 12-month low of $199.81 and a 12-month high of $294.00.

Workday (NASDAQ:WDAY) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 22nd. The software maker reported $2.23 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.01 by $0.22. Workday had a return on equity of 6.13% and a net margin of 19.86%. The company had revenue of $2.24 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.22 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.74 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 12.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Workday, Inc. will post 2.63 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.