Cynthia Tregillis Sells 6,780 Shares of Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) insider Cynthia Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the insider directly owned 136,538 shares in the company, valued at $36,932,163.62. This represents a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Western Digital Trading Up 8.6%

Shares of NASDAQ:WDC opened at $282.58 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $205.35 and its 200 day simple moving average is $144.34. Western Digital Corporation has a 1 year low of $28.83 and a 1 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. The company has a market capitalization of $95.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.34, a P/E/G ratio of 0.73 and a beta of 1.80.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Stockholders 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 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the subject of several research analyst reports. China Renaissance began coverage on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective for the company. Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Wall Street Zen raised Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, January 31st. Mizuho lifted their target price on Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned 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 target price of $265.58.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its holdings in Western Digital by 7.7% in the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,698,000 after buying an additional 3,019 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% during the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after acquiring an additional 967 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the second quarter worth $307,000. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter worth $83,000. Finally, QRG Capital Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at $286,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key 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.