Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Shares Gap Down – Should You Sell?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s stock price gapped down before the market opened on Friday . The stock had previously closed at $558.30, but opened at $538.50. Western Digital shares last traded at $524.56, with a volume of 1,217,635 shares traded.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

WDC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Melius Research set a $1,050.00 price target on Western Digital and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, June 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $530.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price on the stock in a report on Tuesday, March 31st. Fox Advisors lowered shares of Western Digital from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, June 22nd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $660.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, June 29th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $520.32.

Western Digital Stock Performance

The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $564.15 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $396.20. The firm has a market cap of $182.67 billion, a PE ratio of 31.54 and a beta of 2.11.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.36 EPS. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.61 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 4,674 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 sale, the insider directly owned 90,041 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,905,270.79. This represents a 4.93% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total transaction of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 28,959 shares of company stock worth $12,631,666 over the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDC. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 4th quarter worth approximately $788,729,000. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in Western Digital by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $456,884,000 after buying an additional 384,103 shares during the period. Soroban Capital Partners LP raised its holdings in Western Digital by 1,926.3% during the 2nd quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $195,882,000 after buying an additional 2,910,062 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in Western Digital by 70.4% during the 4th quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 2,972,703 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $512,107,000 after buying an additional 1,228,661 shares during the period. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its position in Western Digital by 6.0% in the fourth quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 2,809,409 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $483,977,000 after buying an additional 159,167 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by 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.