The Goldman Sachs Group Raises Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Price Target to $76.00

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) had its price target boosted by investment analysts at The Goldman Sachs Group from $58.00 to $76.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a “neutral” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. The Goldman Sachs Group’s price objective points to a potential upside of 5.47% from the company’s previous close.

Other research analysts have also issued research reports about the company. UBS Group upped their price target on Western Digital from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 6th. Susquehanna upped their price target on Western Digital from $68.00 to $83.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $45.00 to $65.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 16th. Evercore ISI started coverage on Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday, March 27th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $80.00 target price for the company. Finally, Morgan Stanley increased their target price on Western Digital from $52.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, January 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and fifteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $69.78.

Western Digital Trading Down 2.5 %

WDC opened at $72.06 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $62.56 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $53.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $23.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -10.11 and a beta of 1.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.73, a current ratio of 1.67 and a quick ratio of 0.98. Western Digital has a one year low of $31.97 and a one year high of $76.92.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported ($0.69) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.30) by $0.61. The business had revenue of $3.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3 billion. Western Digital had a negative return on equity of 19.45% and a negative net margin of 19.90%. Western Digital’s quarterly revenue was down 2.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted ($0.69) EPS. Analysts predict that Western Digital will post -2.31 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, SVP Gene M. Zamiska sold 443 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, April 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.00, for a total transaction of $33,225.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 30,958 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,321,850. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Western Digital news, SVP Gene M. Zamiska sold 443 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, April 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.00, for a total transaction of $33,225.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 30,958 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,321,850. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 2,648 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $69.95, for a total value of $185,227.60. Following the sale, the director now owns 20,509 shares in the company, valued at $1,434,604.55. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.28% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDC. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 0.6% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 38,579,938 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,020,431,000 after buying an additional 215,207 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 9.3% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 22,595,297 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $851,166,000 after buying an additional 1,931,325 shares during the last quarter. Nomura Holdings Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 7.0% in the 3rd quarter. Nomura Holdings Inc. now owns 13,361,999 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $609,708,000 after buying an additional 870,971 shares during the last quarter. DNB Asset Management AS boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 8.6% in the 4th quarter. DNB Asset Management AS now owns 5,587,698 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $292,628,000 after buying an additional 443,903 shares during the last quarter. Finally, DnB Asset Management AS boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 7.3% in the 3rd quarter. DnB Asset Management AS now owns 5,143,795 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $234,711,000 after buying an additional 351,916 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Western Digital Company Profile

Western Digital Corporation develops, manufactures, and sells data storage devices and solutions in the United States, China, Hong Kong, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, rest of Asia, and internationally. It offers client devices, including hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) for desktop and notebook personal computers (PCs), gaming consoles, and set top boxes; and flash-based embedded storage products for mobile phones, tablets, notebook PCs, and other portable and wearable devices, as well as automotive, Internet of Things, industrial, and connected home applications.