Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC Purchases New Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Exencial Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 1,545 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $266,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Avion Wealth raised its holdings in Western Digital by 163.8% during the 4th quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. ORG Partners LLC raised its holdings in Western Digital by 124.5% during the 3rd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 117 shares during the last quarter. Concord Wealth Partners bought a new stake in Western Digital during the 4th quarter valued at $41,000. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its holdings in Western Digital by 551.4% during the 3rd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 204 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Westfuller Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

Here are the key news stories impacting Western Digital this week:

• Positive Sentiment: WDC beat Q3 estimates (EPS $2.72 vs. ~ $2.34–2.41) and reported revenue growth of ~45%, with conference materials and a slide deck available — results underpin the rally and justify re-rating on stronger profitability. MarketBeat Press Release / Slide Deck
• Positive Sentiment: Management guided Q4 EPS to $3.10–3.40 and revenue roughly $3.6–3.8B, above consensus — signaling sustained pricing power from enterprise AI storage demand. Reuters: WDC forecasts revenue above estimates
• Positive Sentiment: Peer signals: SanDisk and Seagate also flagged strong AI-related demand and higher revenue outlooks, giving sector-level validation that hyperscaler capex is driving near-term HDD/SSD consumption. Reuters: SanDisk joins peers signaling AI demand
• Positive Sentiment: Sector momentum from Seagate’s blowout results lifted investor appetite for WDC ahead of and after the print — reinforcing a near-term “picks-and-shovels” trade into storage suppliers. 247WallSt: HDD trade lifts WDC & STX
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts remain constructive (some raised price targets; institutional notes like Bank of America were bullish), but consensus estimates were elevated into the print — meaning future upside depends on execution and whether demand stays strong. Barchart: Analysts bullish ahead of earnings
• Negative Sentiment: Despite the beat and upbeat guidance, some traders sold into the news — headlines and TV coverage called it a “buy the rumor, sell the news” episode after WDC’s large prior gains, producing intraday pullbacks. MarketWatch: Stock slides despite earnings beat
• Negative Sentiment: Several outlets noted late-day slips and profit-taking after the print; elevated valuation and very large short- and long-term moves increase volatility risk for investors entering new positions now. Yahoo Finance: Stock slips late despite beat

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

WDC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Monday, February 9th. Truist Financial set a $310.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. UBS Group set a $500.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Monday. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $332.00.

Western Digital Stock Up 5.3%

Shares of Western Digital stock opened at $434.52 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $314.33 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $233.19. The company has a market cap of $147.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 43.58, a PEG ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 1.77. Western Digital Corporation has a 12-month low of $43.60 and a 12-month high of $441.99.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its earnings results 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The company’s revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.77 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 8.61 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be given a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is a boost from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. Western Digital’s payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total value of $9,616,638.18. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 8,518 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.32, for a total transaction of $2,174,815.76. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 99,276 shares in the company, 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 sold 92,711 shares of company stock valued at $24,300,404 over the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.