Traders Purchase Large Volume of Put Options on Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX)

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Investors bought 16,121 put options on the company. This represents an increase of 189% compared to the typical volume of 5,586 put options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently commented on STX. The Goldman Sachs Group reduced their price target on shares of Seagate Technology from $112.00 to $99.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Summit Insights upgraded shares of Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Seagate Technology from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. Benchmark upgraded shares of Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price target for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Seagate Technology from $95.00 to $105.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Seagate Technology has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $121.00.

Seagate Technology Stock Up 0.3 %

NASDAQ:STX traded up $0.25 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $88.63. 934,392 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 2,590,683. Seagate Technology has a 1 year low of $82.31 and a 1 year high of $115.32. The company has a market cap of $18.76 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.16 and a beta of 1.01. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $96.33 and a 200 day moving average price of $98.84.

Seagate Technology Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 19th will be paid a dividend of $0.72 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 19th. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.25%. Seagate Technology’s payout ratio is 52.65%.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Seagate Technology

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 6.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 27,974,117 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,414,446,000 after acquiring an additional 1,814,821 shares in the last quarter. Sanders Capital LLC grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 16,530,152 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,426,717,000 after acquiring an additional 162,561 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 56.5% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 15,621,162 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,348,262,000 after acquiring an additional 5,640,443 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 6.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,502,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $937,081,000 after acquiring an additional 541,585 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,295,225 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $370,013,000 after acquiring an additional 132,713 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Seagate Technology Company Profile

Seagate Technology Holdings plc provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and internationally. It provides mass capacity storage products, including enterprise nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise nearline solid state drives (SSDs), enterprise nearline systems, video and image HDDs, and network-attached storage drives.