Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Hits New 52-Week High Following Analyst Upgrade

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares reached a new 52-week high on Wednesday after Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock to $260.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Western Digital traded as high as $236.88 and last traded at $240.5140, with a volume of 2245291 shares. The stock had previously closed at $222.97.

A number of other brokerages have also recently issued reports on WDC. Loop Capital upped their target price on Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Susquehanna boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $135.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $280.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $165.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $145.00 to $230.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and five have issued 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 $206.29.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In related news, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $272,272.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 3,585 shares in the company, valued at $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total value of $277,956.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 3,863 shares in the company, valued at $596,524.46. The trade was a 31.79% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 26,816 shares of company stock worth $4,116,148. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst upgrades and big price‑target hikes — Several firms (Citigroup, Rosenblatt, Bank of America and others) raised targets and reiterated buy/overweight ratings, giving immediate validation to higher valuation expectations and helping lift WDC shares. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Sector rotation into storage on the back of AI — Institutional flows are shifting from GPUs to storage as AI needs move from compute to massive capacity and checkpointing, boosting demand (and pricing power) for HDDs and SSDs that Western Digital supplies. This narrative is fuelling multiple upgrades and higher forward estimates. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Earnings beat momentum — Analysts (Zacks coverage) note WDC has a strong history of beating estimates and says the company has the setup to outpace consensus again next quarter, supporting upside to near-term EPS expectations. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Corporate catalysts and shareholder returns — Western Digital’s Innovation Day (Feb. 3) to highlight HAMR and data‑center roadmap, plus a recent 25% quarterly dividend increase, give tangible catalysts that could reinforce the AI‑storage investment thesis. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider sale is minor — An officer sold 447 shares (~$229 avg) in a routine filing; small relative to total holdings and not an obvious red flag for management conviction. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and pullback risk — Several articles warn WDC’s rapid multi‑hundred‑percent rally may be overextended; a reversion in supply/pricing dynamics or slowing AI spending could trigger volatility and a meaningful pullback. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Not a pure AI play — Analysts caution WDC is a storage/cycle stock; AI can materially help fundamentals but won’t eliminate traditional cycle risk, so upside may be lumpy and sensitive to memory supply dynamics. Read More.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. ORG Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% during the 3rd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares during the period. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its position in Western Digital by 551.4% in the third quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Grove Bank & Trust bought a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter worth about $30,000. Westfuller Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 207.0% in the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 178 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Stock Performance

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 firm has a market capitalization of $83.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.41, a PEG ratio of 1.16 and a beta of 1.78. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $180.97 and a 200-day moving average price of $128.66.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.21. The business had revenue of $2.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.72 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.Western Digital’s quarterly revenue was up 27.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.78 EPS. Western Digital has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-2.030 EPS. As a group, analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 4th were issued a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 4th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 7.28%.

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.