Strativest CapitalSTRATIVEST RESEARCH
Independent research · Est. October 2026
Subscribe
← All X-Rays
Stock X-Ray · Technology · S&P 500 Full Coverage — Phase 1

Workday (WDAY)

X-Ray dated Oct 28, 2026 · Share price as of the Oct 27, 2026 close · Financials from SEC filings (EDGAR) · Valuation multiples from a labelled secondary source
The verdict — valuation label: FAIRLY PRICED

Forward P/E 17.03x against a peer median of 18.61x gives a ratio of 0.92x, just inside the fairly-priced band and just above the 0.90x undervalued line — the discount is real but too small to call a bargain. PEG 0.90 supports the price being reasonable for the growth on offer, and latest-quarter revenue grew +12.8% YoY (PRIMARY/EDGAR), close to the application-software cluster median of +14.9%. Trailing P/E 42.32x is much higher than the forward figure, which reflects earnings still building rather than a stretched price, but it also means the fair call depends on the forward earnings arriving. Delivered demand check: the Application software group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 14.9% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising, and Workday is growing broadly with it.

17.0×
Forward P/E — price vs next year’s expected earnings (secondary source)
18.6×
Peer median forward P/E — closest comparable companies
42.3×
Trailing P/E — price vs the last twelve months of earnings
4.9×
Price / sales

What would change this label: Moves to UNDERVALUED if the forward P/E falls below ~16.7x (ratio under 0.90x) while revenue growth holds at or above +12% YoY; moves to OVERVALUED if the forward P/E re-rates above ~24x (ratio over 1.30x) without revenue growth accelerating above +20% YoY, or if growth falls below +6% YoY at an unchanged multiple.

In simple words

Workday sells cloud software that companies use for payroll, hiring and finance. Sales grew about 13% last quarter, in line with similar software firms, and the shares cost about 17 times next year's expected profits — a touch less than rivals at about 19 times. That small discount is not enough to call it a bargain, so the price looks fair.

Words we use, in plain English: P/E ratio — the share price divided by earnings per share; how many dollars you pay for one dollar of yearly profit. Forward P/E — the same, using next year’s expected earnings. Free cash flow — cash a company has left after running the business and buying equipment. TTM — the last twelve months. Drawdown — the worst fall from a peak to the low after it.
Figure 1 — The share price vs the market — six years
Workday (WDAY)S&P 500 (SPY)
33841341842342021202220232024202520262020-09-012026-10-27

Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window Workday returned -15.01% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for Workday: -63.4% (2024-02-26 to 2026-04-10). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.

What the label rests on

Forward P/E 17.03x against a peer median of 18.61x gives a ratio of 0.92x, just inside the fairly-priced band and just above the 0.90x undervalued line — the discount is real but too small to call a bargain. PEG 0.90 supports the price being reasonable for the growth on offer, and latest-quarter revenue grew +12.8% YoY (PRIMARY/EDGAR), close to the application-software cluster median of +14.9%. Trailing P/E 42.32x is much higher than the forward figure, which reflects earnings still building rather than a stretched price, but it also means the fair call depends on the forward earnings arriving. Delivered demand check: the Application software group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 14.9% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising, and Workday is growing broadly with it. The company’s forward P/E is 17.0× against a peer median of 18.6×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Application software group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was 14.9% year over year (SEC filings) — demand rising. Latest-quarter sales growth was +12.8% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).

Table 1
CompanyPrice (Oct 27, 2026)Forward P/ETrailing P/E
Workday (WDAY)$205.4617.0×42.3×
ADSK$241.9118.6×31.4×
PTC$194.6223.2×18.9×
TYL$378.6226.3×49.9×
FICO$702.4015.2×20.4×
TRMB$63.1616.3×—
Peer median18.6×

Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.

Sales, profit and cash

Figure 2 — Sales and profit each quarter
SalesNet income (profit)
$0B$1B$2B$3BOct 2020Oct 2021Oct 2022Oct 2023Oct 2024Oct 2025Jul 2026

This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.

Figure 3 — Cash left over each quarter (free cash flow)
PositiveNegative
$-1B$0B$1BOct 2020Oct 2021Oct 2022Oct 2023Oct 2024Oct 2025Jul 2026

Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.

Table 2
QuarterSalesGross marginNet incomeEPS (GAAP, diluted)Free cash flow
Q/E Jul 2026
2026-07-31
$2.6B—$632M2.57$460M
Q/E Apr 2026
2026-04-30
$2.5B—$222M0.87$616M
Q/E Jan 2026
2026-01-31
$2.5B—$145M—$1.2B
Q/E Oct 2025
2025-10-31
$2.4B—$252M0.94$550M
Q/E Jul 2025
2025-07-31
$2.3B—$228M0.84$588M
Q/E Apr 2025
2025-04-30
$2.2B—$68M0.25$421M
Q/E Jan 2025
2025-01-31
$2.2B—$94M—$1.0B
Q/E Oct 2024
2024-10-31
$2.2B—$193M0.72$359M
Q/E Jul 2024
2024-07-31
$2.1B—$132M0.49$516M
Q/E Apr 2024
2024-04-30
$2.0B—$107M0.40$291M
Q/E Jan 2024
2024-01-31
$1.9B—$1.2B—$947M
Q/E Oct 2023
2023-10-31
$1.9B—$114M0.43$391M

The last twelve reported quarters. Full 24-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.

Earnings: getting better or worse?

Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.

Oct 2022
-0.29
Jan 2023
—
Apr 2023
0.00
Jul 2023
0.30
Oct 2023
0.43
Jan 2024
—
Apr 2024
0.40
Jul 2024
0.49
Oct 2024
0.72
Jan 2025
—
Apr 2025
0.25
Jul 2025
0.84
Oct 2025
0.94
Jan 2026
—
Apr 2026
0.87
Jul 2026
2.57

Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

Key facts

Table 3
ItemValue
Company (legal name in filings)Workday, Inc.
Chief executiveAneel Bhusri (source: https://anz.peoplemattersglobal.com/news/appointments/aneel-bhusri-returns-as-ceo-of-workday-ushering-in-a-new-era-of-ai-driven-innovation-48349)
SectorTechnology — Application Software — cloud software for human-capital management (HR) and financial management
Share price (Oct 27, 2026)$205.46
Market value (market cap)$50.6B — share price times shares outstanding of 246,307,000 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR WeightedAverageNumberOfDilutedSharesOutstanding (latest quarter; dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding series is stale for this filer))
Sales, last twelve months$10.2B
Net income, last twelve months$1.3B
Free cash flow, last twelve months$2.8B
Latest reported quarterQ/E Jul 2026 (of 24 quarters in the data pack)
Six-year price return vs S&P 500-15.01% vs +118.28%
Worst peak-to-trough fall-63.4% (2024-02-26 to 2026-04-10)

What we could not verify

  • Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
  • TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
  • Free cash flow is absent for one or more quarters: either the filer does not separately tag PP&E purchases in its EDGAR cash-flow facts (common for banks), or — for a successor registrant's newest quarter — the cash-flow lines are year-to-date without the prior-quarter rung needed to difference them. Affected quarters are null in the data, never estimated.
  • Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
  • Multiples provenance: the brief's fetch notes record that the direct statistics-page fetch failed with a 429 rate limit and the multiples were taken from the stockanalysis.com statistics result as printed in a search snippet — same source, indirect capture.
  • Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.

The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.

Sources

  • SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name. https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001327811.json
  • SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares. https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0001327811.json
  • Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates. https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/WDAY/historical?assetclass=stocks
  • Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.

Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.

Filed under: Stock X-Ray · Technology · WDAY