Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC Makes New $636,000 Investment in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 5,301 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $636,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in WDC. ORG Partners LLC raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% in the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% in the 3rd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Grove Bank & Trust purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $30,000. Westfuller Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC increased its holdings in Western Digital by 207.0% during the third quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 178 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

WDC has been the topic of several recent research reports. Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Wall Street Zen raised Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, January 31st. Benchmark lifted their target price on Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Citigroup increased their price target on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock 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 assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Performance

WDC opened at $282.58 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $95.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.73 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $205.35 and its 200-day moving average price is $144.87. Western Digital Corporation has a 52-week low of $28.83 and a 52-week high of $296.50.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 company had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 EPS. Western Digital’s revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced 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. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total value of $277,956.00. Following the sale, the director owned 3,863 shares in the company, valued at approximately $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. Insiders have sold a total of 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708 over the last three months. Corporate 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.