Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) was upgraded by Summit Redstone from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, The Fly reports.
WDC has been the topic of several other research reports. Morgan Stanley lowered Western Digital from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $120.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Monday, November 27th. Vetr lowered Western Digital from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $95.09 price target on the stock. in a research report on Tuesday, November 21st. KeyCorp reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Sunday, August 27th. Mizuho reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $105.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, September 5th. Finally, ValuEngine lowered Western Digital from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 1st. Nine investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-four have given a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. The stock has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $114.20.
Shares of Western Digital (WDC) opened at $81.77 on Wednesday. The company has a market capitalization of $24,097.73, a P/E ratio of 8.18 and a beta of 1.10. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.07, a current ratio of 2.64 and a quick ratio of 2.13. Western Digital has a 12 month low of $66.59 and a 12 month high of $95.77.
Western Digital declared that its board has authorized a share repurchase program on Thursday, November 9th that allows the company to buyback $2.10 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the data storage provider to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.
In related news, Director Kathleen A. Cote sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.63, for a total transaction of $181,260.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 16,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,488,235.23. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Michael D. Cordano sold 9,404 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $88.71, for a total value of $834,228.84. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now directly owns 75,385 shares in the company, valued at $6,687,403.35. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 24,042 shares of company stock worth $2,116,143 over the last three months. 0.31% of the stock is owned by insiders.
Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Accredited Investors Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 0.4% during the 2nd quarter. Accredited Investors Inc. now owns 2,713 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $240,000 after acquiring an additional 11 shares during the period. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 0.6% during the 2nd quarter. Cookson Peirce & Co. Inc. now owns 3,600 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $319,000 after acquiring an additional 20 shares during the period. MUFG Americas Holdings Corp lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. MUFG Americas Holdings Corp now owns 2,468 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $117,000 after acquiring an additional 21 shares during the period. Honkamp Krueger Financial Services Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Honkamp Krueger Financial Services Inc. now owns 4,571 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $405,000 after acquiring an additional 25 shares during the period. Finally, Barry Investment Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 0.4% during the 2nd quarter. Barry Investment Advisors LLC now owns 6,331 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $561,000 after acquiring an additional 26 shares during the period. 83.99% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
About Western Digital
Western Digital Corporation (Western Digital) is a developer, manufacturer and provider of data storage devices and solutions that address the needs of the information technology (IT) industry and the infrastructure that enables the proliferation of data in virtually every industry. The Company’s portfolio of offerings addresses three categories: Datacenter Devices and Solutions (capacity and performance enterprise hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), datacenter software and system solutions); Client Devices (mobile, desktop, gaming and digital video hard drives, client SSDs, embedded products and wafers), and Client Solutions (removable products, hard drive content solutions and flash content solutions).
