Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Sets New 12-Month High on Analyst Upgrade

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday after Citigroup raised their price target on the stock to $405.00. Citigroup currently has a buy rating on the stock. Western Digital traded as high as $351.87 and last traded at $350.16, with a volume of 5390681 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $343.43.

WDC has been the topic of several other research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 target price on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Argus set a $300.00 target price on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Zacks Research downgraded Western Digital from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. Mizuho upped their price objective on Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Twenty-one analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $288.33.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total value of $9,616,638.18. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 8,518 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.32, for a total value of $2,174,815.76. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 99,276 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $25,347,148.32. This represents a 7.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884 over the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Stance Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 2,134.1% in the 4th quarter. Stance Capital LLC now owns 7,462 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,285,000 after buying an additional 7,128 shares during the period. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 20.6% in the 4th quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 56,391 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $9,715,000 after buying an additional 9,615 shares during the period. World Investment Advisors lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 145.8% in the 4th quarter. World Investment Advisors now owns 5,950 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,025,000 after buying an additional 3,529 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 59,679 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $10,281,000 after buying an additional 1,409 shares during the period. Finally, Pure Financial Advisors LLC lifted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 5.8% during the 4th quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 3,792 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $653,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Western Digital Stock Down 0.3%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. The stock has a market capitalization of $123.75 billion, a PE ratio of 36.61, a PEG ratio of 0.84 and a beta of 1.77. The business has a 50 day moving average of $289.34 and a two-hundred day moving average of $213.17.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. Analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is 5.02%.

Western Digital Company Profile

Western Digital Corporation is a global data storage company that designs, manufactures and sells a broad range of storage devices and systems for personal, enterprise and cloud applications. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company develops hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), NAND flash components and finished storage products used in PCs, external storage, servers, network-attached storage (NAS) and embedded systems.

Its product portfolio spans consumer and commercial markets, including internal and external HDDs and SSDs, removable flash memory products and storage platforms for data center and enterprise environments.