Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Trading Down 4% – Time to Sell?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) dropped 4% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $450.28 and last traded at $463.91. Approximately 7,127,581 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 24% from the average daily volume of 9,342,841 shares. The stock had previously closed at $483.15.

Trending Headlines about Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street analysts remain upbeat on Western Digital, with firms lifting price targets and Zacks upgrading the stock to Strong Buy, signaling rising confidence in demand trends and earnings momentum. Zacks Research upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: Coverage is highlighting Western Digital as a beneficiary of the AI memory and data-center storage supercycle, with demand for high-capacity storage solutions expected to stay elevated. Motley Fool article
• Positive Sentiment: The company’s recent earnings beat, raised guidance, and multiple target increases from analysts continue to support the stock’s sharp year-to-date gain and keep momentum investors engaged. Yahoo Finance article
• Neutral Sentiment: Western Digital also announced progress on simplifying its structure by unwinding its remaining Sandisk stake through share swaps and future distributions, which may help investors better value WDC as a more focused storage pure play. Yahoo Finance share swap article

Analyst Ratings Changes

WDC has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, May 1st. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $350.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Argus set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $320.00 to $400.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $495.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $395.83.

Western Digital Stock Up 3.5%

The firm has a market capitalization of $165.48 billion, a PE ratio of 28.66, a P/E/G ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 2.10. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $325.84 and its 200 day moving average price is $242.16.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 5th. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 2.99%.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 363 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $377.09, for a total transaction of $136,883.67. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 120,023 shares in the company, valued at $45,259,473.07. This represents a 0.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 4,674 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $443.19, for a total transaction of $2,071,470.06. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 90,041 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $39,905,270.79. This trade represents a 4.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 53,679 shares of company stock worth $18,049,314 over the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 9.2% in the first quarter. GHP Investment Advisors Inc. now owns 357 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $97,000 after purchasing an additional 30 shares during the period. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 33.3% in the first quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 132 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 33 shares during the period. Alps Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Alps Advisors Inc. now owns 4,707 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $811,000 after purchasing an additional 37 shares during the period. Astoria Portfolio Advisors LLC. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 1.1% in the first quarter. Astoria Portfolio Advisors LLC. now owns 3,782 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,023,000 after purchasing an additional 40 shares during the period. Finally, Quadcap Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Western Digital by 2.1% in the fourth quarter. Quadcap Wealth Management LLC now owns 2,007 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $346,000 after acquiring an additional 41 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.