DAVENPORT & Co LLC Takes Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

DAVENPORT & Co LLC bought a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 3,070 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $369,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the business. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $593,045,000 after buying an additional 186,030 shares during the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP boosted its holdings 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 valued at $354,247,000 after acquiring an additional 431,419 shares in the last quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. increased its position in Western Digital by 130.0% during the 1st quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. now owns 5,029,359 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $203,337,000 after purchasing an additional 2,842,822 shares during the period. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. raised its holdings in Western Digital by 17.1% in the 2nd quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. now owns 3,735,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $239,022,000 after purchasing an additional 545,500 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter worth about $220,680,000. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WDC has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Benchmark boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $250.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, December 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “neutral” rating and set a $148.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Western Digital to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 16th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price objective on Western Digital from $170.00 to $197.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 20th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $173.65.

Western Digital Trading Down 2.0%

NASDAQ WDC opened at $176.06 on Wednesday. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $160.56 and its 200-day moving average price is $112.08. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42. The stock has a market cap of $60.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.63, a P/E/G ratio of 1.11 and a beta of 1.82. Western Digital Corporation has a 12 month low of $28.83 and a 12 month high of $188.77.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, April 7th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 EPS for the quarter. The company had revenue of $4.10 billion for the quarter. Western Digital had a net margin of 21.37% and a return on equity of 30.89%. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 4th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 4th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.28%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.69, for a total transaction of $3,013,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 645,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $97,265,422.23. This represents a 3.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total value of $272,272.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 3,585 shares in the company, valued at $552,090. This trade represents a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 26,369 shares of company stock worth $4,013,785 over the last three months. Company insiders own 0.18% 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.