Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Reaches New 12-Month High – Still a Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) reached a new 52-week high on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $333.65 and last traded at $346.04, with a volume of 252354 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $311.96.

Key Headlines Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley raised its price target and kept an Overweight rating (and other broker positivity), supporting upside expectations for HDD demand and WDC’s shares. Morgan Stanley and Bernstein Positive on Western Digital (WDC)
• Positive Sentiment: Shares recently hit an all-time intraday high, reflecting strong momentum driven by AI/data-center storage demand and investor rotation into memory/storage names. Western Digital stock reaches all-time high at $334.48
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts expect robust Q3 fiscal results with double‑digit earnings growth, which supports the bull case that AI-driven capacity needs will keep revenue and margins healthy. Western Digital’s Q3 2026 Earnings: What to Expect
• Positive Sentiment: Some market commentary frames recent pullbacks (e.g., after TurboQuant headlines) as buying opportunities given strong AI-driven storage demand, suggesting contrarian upside for patient investors. Memory Wipe: The Great TurboQuant Miscalculation (WDC)
• Neutral Sentiment: WDC announced an open-source quantum error-correction alliance — a positive long-term R&D/positioning move but unlikely to move near-term revenue; more strategic than immediate catalyst. Western Digital Taps Open Source Quantum Error Correction For Future Storage
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation concerns are rising after a ~7x one‑year surge; some investors are questioning whether current prices already reflect future growth, increasing volatility risk. Is It Too Late To Consider Western Digital (WDC) After Its 7x One Year Surge?
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst and media attention shifting to Seagate as the preferred pick (citing margin upside) could divert flows away from WDC if investors favor Seagate’s near‑term fundamentals. Move Over, Western Digital! Why Seagate Is the New Top Stock Pick
• Negative Sentiment: Concerns about Google’s TurboQuant and other compression/optimization tech have previously pressured memory/storage names by suggesting lower incremental storage demand; this remains a headline risk for WDC. Is Western Digital Corporation (WDC) at Threat from Google’s TurboQuant?

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have commented on WDC shares. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 target price on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $325.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Monday, February 9th. Susquehanna reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $285.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, February 6th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Twenty-one analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $278.83.

Western Digital Stock Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $114.55 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.89, a P/E/G ratio of 0.78 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $282.45 and a 200-day moving average price of $205.59.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.77 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In related news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total transaction of $2,501,349.48. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 121,682 shares in the company, valued at approximately $32,643,630.14. This represents a 7.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total value of $5,108,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock worth $24,265,884 in the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Western Digital by 0.6% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,196,484,000 after buying an additional 243,177 shares in the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the third quarter worth about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP increased its position in Western Digital by 8.5% in the second quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after buying an additional 431,419 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the fourth quarter worth about $788,729,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp increased its position in Western Digital by 11.2% in the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,884,000 after buying an additional 384,103 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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.