Buckhead Capital Management LLC Purchases New Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Buckhead Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 1,470 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $253,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Rakuten Securities Inc. raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 4,070.0% during the 2nd quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 407 shares in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Westfuller Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Avion Wealth raised its position in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 113 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC increased its position in Western Digital by 207.0% in the third quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 178 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total value of $2,501,349.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 121,682 shares of the company’s stock, 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 document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total value of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 53,785 shares of company stock valued at $18,097,954. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on WDC. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $488.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, May 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $400.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Cantor Fitzgerald increased their target price on Western Digital to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Argus set a $300.00 target price on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $395.83.

Western Digital Stock Performance

NASDAQ:WDC opened at $484.28 on Friday. Western Digital Corporation has a 1 year low of $49.00 and a 1 year high of $525.15. The stock has a market cap of $166.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.91 and a beta of 2.10. The business has a fifty day moving average of $373.02 and a 200-day moving average of $268.41.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.33. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.The company had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.36 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.57 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be paid a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 5th. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 3.58%.

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.