Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Shares Gap Up – Still a Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares gapped up before the market opened on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $643.83, but opened at $729.00. Western Digital shares last traded at $672.8550, with a volume of 2,199,111 shares traded.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Micron’s strong quarterly results reinforced the AI-driven memory shortage theme, which has lifted Western Digital along with other memory stocks. Western Digital Stock And Seagate Get Boost From Big Micron Earnings Beat
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and commentators continue to highlight strong AI memory demand, rising estimate revisions, and favorable supply-demand dynamics for WDC. Micron’s Robust Q3 Results Raise Investor Attention on These 3 Stocks
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports of SK Hynix planning a Nasdaq listing on July 10 add more attention to the broader memory ecosystem, but the direct impact on WDC is unclear. Is the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) a Buy Before July 10?
• Negative Sentiment: After the sector’s big rally, memory and semiconductor stocks are pulling back as investors take profits and worry that memory and storage costs may have gotten ahead of fundamentals. MU, SNDK, WDC: 3 Key Reasons Why Memory Stocks Are Falling Today
• Negative Sentiment: Broader tech-sector weakness is weighing on WDC alongside other chip names, adding to the selloff in the group. Semiconductor stocks retreat over worries about memory costs

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have weighed in on WDC shares. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on Western Digital to $660.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $450.00 to $620.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 27th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 price target for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. Finally, Bank of America raised their price target on shares of Western Digital to $495.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $450.46.

Western Digital Stock Down 13.2%

The company’s fifty day moving average price is $518.00 and its 200-day moving average price is $344.63. The stock has a market capitalization of $202.14 billion, a PE ratio of 35.01 and a beta of 2.13.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The company had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.36 EPS. Western Digital’s revenue was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Investors of record on Friday, June 5th were given a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. This is a boost from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. The ex-dividend date was Friday, June 5th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 3.58%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 432 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $545.60, for a total transaction of $235,699.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 116,643 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $63,640,420.80. This represents a 0.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total value of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $246,342,096. This trade represents a 3.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550 over the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $788,729,000. Fred Alger Management LLC increased its position in Western Digital by 4,923.9% in the third quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 3,407,042 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $409,049,000 after purchasing an additional 3,339,225 shares during the last quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP raised its stake in Western Digital by 1,926.3% during the second quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $195,882,000 after purchasing an additional 2,910,062 shares in the last quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc bought a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter valued at $221,800,000. Finally, Value Aligned Research Advisors LLC bought a new position in Western Digital during the first quarter valued at $350,403,000. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.