Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Price Target Raised to $340.00

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) had its price objective raised by Mizuho to $340.00 in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday, MarketBeat.com reports. They currently have an outperform rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

WDC has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Truist Financial set a $310.00 price target on Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday. Loop Capital raised their target price on shares of Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Zacks Research raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 13th. Cantor Fitzgerald increased their price target on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Barclays upped their target price on Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Performance

Shares of WDC opened at $282.58 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $95.81 billion, a PE ratio of 28.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.68 and a beta of 1.80. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $205.35 and a 200-day moving average of $143.80. Western Digital has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $296.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The business had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. Western Digital’s revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Western Digital will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th will be given a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 5.02%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $272,272.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 3,585 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $552,090. This represents a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total transaction of $1,833,922.20. Following the sale, the insider owned 136,538 shares in the company, valued at $36,932,163.62. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 70,522 shares of company stock valued at $17,661,708 over the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 0.6% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,196,484,000 after purchasing an additional 243,177 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Western Digital by 2.0% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $593,045,000 after buying an additional 186,030 shares in the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC bought a new position in Western Digital in the third quarter valued at about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP raised its stake in Western Digital by 8.5% during the second quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after acquiring an additional 431,419 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its stake in Western Digital by 11.2% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,884,000 after acquiring an additional 384,103 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

More Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board approved an incremental $4 billion share-repurchase program — a large, explicit capital-return move that supports demand for the stock and signals confidence from the board. Reuters: Western Digital adds $4 billion to buyback plan
• Positive Sentiment: Innovation Day unveiled an AI-focused storage roadmap (claims of up to 8x performance improvements and path to 100TB+ HDDs), reinforcing WDC’s positioning in AI training/data-center storage — supports longer-term demand expectations. PCWorld: WD maps out 8x performance boosts
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst community is upgrading WDC and lifting targets (several notes to Buy/Overweight and new street-high targets), which fuels short-term momentum and buy-side interest. Barchart: New street-high price target
• Positive Sentiment: Recent quarterly results beat estimates (revenue and EPS strength) and reinforce the “memory supercycle” / AI-driven storage demand thesis — supports earnings growth expectations. Zacks: WDC is up 5.85% in one week
• Neutral Sentiment: Sandisk’s dramatic rally (spun out from WDC) is lifting sentiment across the memory/storage complex — helpful for WDC thematically but also highlights increased sector volatility and comparatives. MarketBeat: Sandisk’s Swings Are Getting Bigger
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader policy moves to secure supply chains for critical minerals are supportive over the long run for domestic hardware supply, but they are not an immediate stock catalyst. MarketBeat: Critical minerals policy
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares (~$5.1M) in early February (SEC filing) — an insider sale that can prompt some near-term profit-taking despite his continued large ownership. SEC filing: Insider sale disclosure

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.