Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Shares Down 9.9% – Should You Sell?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s share price fell 9.9% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $525.84 and last traded at $539.00. Approximately 8,884,287 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 3% from the average daily volume of 9,182,466 shares. The stock had previously closed at $598.37.

Western Digital News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Bank of America raised its price target on Western Digital and reiterated a Buy rating, while Melius Research upgraded the stock to Strong Buy, signaling confidence in further upside. Benzinga
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts also boosted their fair value estimate for WDC, reflecting optimism that AI-related storage demand and hard drive pricing trends could improve Western Digital’s earnings outlook. Yahoo Finance
• Positive Sentiment: Zacks highlighted Western Digital as a top momentum pick for Q3 2026 and said the company has a strong history of earnings surprises, suggesting it could beat estimates again when it reports next. Zacks
• Neutral Sentiment: Articles on the broader market noted that WDC is moving with other hot memory names, with the sector still showing strong long-term momentum even after a semiconductor selloff. MarketBeat
• Negative Sentiment: Western Digital has been dragged lower by a risk-off move in memory and chip stocks, as investors took profits after a sharp rally across the semiconductor sector. 247WallSt
• Negative Sentiment: Market commentary also pointed to weakness in many of this year’s leading stocks, including Western Digital, as part of a broader premarket decline. Yahoo Finance

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently weighed in on WDC. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $488.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday, June 15th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 1st. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $500.00 to $575.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, June 1st. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $660.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $400.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $493.52.

Western Digital Trading Down 9.9%

The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $533.61 and a 200 day simple moving average of $355.37. The stock has a market cap of $185.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.18 and a beta of 2.10.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.33. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The company had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.36 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Investors of record on Friday, June 5th were given a $0.15 dividend. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 5th. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 3.58%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total transaction of $8,236,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 2,475 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $556.24, for a total transaction of $1,376,694.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 85,154 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $47,366,060.96. This represents a 2.82% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 29,322 shares of company stock valued at $12,768,550 over the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of WDC. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 7.7% during the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,698,000 after purchasing an additional 3,019 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after buying an additional 967 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter valued at $307,000. Cresset Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in Western Digital during the second quarter worth $292,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. increased its holdings in Western Digital by 55.3% during the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,374 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,000 after buying an additional 845 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Western Digital

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.