Michael R. Cannon Sells 24,190 Shares of Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) Stock

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) Director Michael R. Cannon sold 24,190 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $119.00, for a total value of $2,878,610.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 10,835 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,289,365. This trade represents a 69.06% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Seagate Technology Stock Performance

Shares of STX opened at $126.97 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $93.33 and its 200 day simple moving average is $94.13. The stock has a market capitalization of $26.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.21 and a beta of 1.40. Seagate Technology Holdings plc has a 52-week low of $63.19 and a 52-week high of $129.96.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by $0.15. The business had revenue of $2.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.14 billion. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 63.48% and a net margin of 14.67%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 30.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.33 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Seagate Technology Holdings plc will post 6.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology announced that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Thursday, May 22nd that allows the company to repurchase $5.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the data storage provider to reacquire up to 21.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Seagate Technology Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 25th will be issued a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 25th. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.27%. Seagate Technology’s payout ratio is currently 41.62%.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 28,743,126 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,441,729,000 after acquiring an additional 769,009 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 12.9% in the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 18,920,792 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,607,321,000 after acquiring an additional 2,161,191 shares in the last quarter. Sanders Capital LLC raised its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 1.0% in the 4th 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 raised its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 56.5% in the 4th 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. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 3.2% in the 4th 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. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.87% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on STX. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their price objective on Seagate Technology from $110.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, May 19th. Barclays upped their price objective on Seagate Technology from $80.00 to $90.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 30th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Seagate Technology from $105.00 to $122.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 23rd. Citigroup upped their price objective on Seagate Technology from $105.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 20th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Seagate Technology from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a research note on Friday, May 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have issued a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Seagate Technology presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $118.89.

About Seagate Technology

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.