Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Trading Up 1.4% – Time to Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares were up 1.4% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $589.65 and last traded at $563.32. 5,268,697 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 42% from the average session volume of 9,017,118 shares. The stock had previously closed at $555.55.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $450.00 to $620.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 27th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, May 2nd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $530.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $520.32.

Western Digital Trading Down 6.4%

The stock has a fifty day moving average of $560.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $381.93. The company has a market capitalization of $165.84 billion, a PE ratio of 28.43 and a beta of 2.11.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its 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. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.Western Digital’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS 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 issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 3.58%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total transaction of $8,236,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $246,342,096. This trade represents a 3.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Bruce E. Kiddoo sold 750 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $528.52, for a total value of $396,390.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 3,903 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062,813.56. This represents a 16.12% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550 in the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Western Digital

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of WDC. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the fourth quarter worth approximately $788,729,000. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in Western Digital by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $456,884,000 after buying an additional 384,103 shares during the last quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP raised its holdings in Western Digital by 1,926.3% during the 2nd quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $195,882,000 after buying an additional 2,910,062 shares during the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Western Digital by 70.4% during the 4th quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,972,703 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $512,107,000 after buying an additional 1,228,661 shares during the period. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its position in Western Digital by 6.0% during the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 2,809,409 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $483,977,000 after buying an additional 159,167 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.