Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Trading Up 3.5% – What’s Next?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares rose 3.5% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $452.00 and last traded at $450.75. 4,540,258 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 49% from the average daily volume of 8,853,004 shares. The stock had previously closed at $435.38.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts comparing Western Digital with Seagate Technology and Teradata view WDC as the stronger AI-storage opportunity, citing hyperscale data-center demand, rising storage requirements, improving margins and robust cash generation. Western Digital vs. Teradata: Which AI Data Stock Has Stronger Upside?
• Positive Sentiment: Western Digital’s latest quarterly results provide fundamental support: earnings of $3.56 per share exceeded estimates, revenue reached $3.75 billion and sales increased 43.8% year over year. Investors are also watching the planned 40TB drive and HAMR product ramp as potential fiscal 2027 growth drivers. WDC’s Strong Q4 Raises the Stakes for Its Fiscal 2027 Product Ramp
• Positive Sentiment: Zacks identifies WDC as a top-ranked growth stock, while the brokerage consensus remains “Moderate Buy,” with several analysts maintaining substantially higher price targets. Western Digital Is a Top-Ranked Growth Stock
• Neutral Sentiment: Management will present at Citi’s Global TMT Conference on September 9. The event could offer updates on demand, pricing and the product ramp, but the announcement included no new guidance. WD to Participate in Upcoming Investor Conference
• Neutral Sentiment: Director Cynthia Tregillis sold 919 shares in two transactions under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. The sales reduced her holdings only slightly and are therefore a limited signal about management’s outlook. SEC insider transaction filing
• Negative Sentiment: Investors have rotated out of high-performing AI, semiconductor and memory stocks ahead of Nvidia’s earnings report, pressuring WDC despite healthy underlying storage demand. Memory and Semiconductor Stocks Fall
• Negative Sentiment: Reports that Apple may source memory chips from Chinese suppliers have raised concerns about competition and pricing. WDC’s premium valuation, cloud-customer concentration and reliance on successful product execution remain additional risks. Memory Stocks Slide on Apple Supplier Report

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Western Digital from $530.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, June 12th. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $575.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on Western Digital from $575.00 to $730.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, July 10th. UBS Group cut their price target on shares of Western Digital from $560.00 to $525.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $610.00 to $732.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 1st. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $534.56.

Western Digital Trading Up 3.5%

The firm has a market cap of $155.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 18.62 and a beta of 2.14. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $547.88 and a two-hundred day moving average of $435.48.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 5th. The data storage provider reported $3.56 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.31 by $0.25. Western Digital had a net margin of 72.95% and a return on equity of 48.15%. The company had revenue of $3.75 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.70 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.66 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 43.8% on a year-over-year basis. Western Digital has set its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.850-4.150 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 19.65 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 8th will be given a $0.15 dividend. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 8th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is 2.48%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Western Digital news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 2,475 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $556.24, for a total transaction of $1,376,694.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 85,154 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,366,060.96. This trade represents a 2.82% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Bruce E. Kiddoo sold 750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $528.52, for a total value of $396,390.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 3,903 shares in the company, valued at $2,062,813.56. This represents a 16.12% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 25,598 shares of company stock worth $11,868,944. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of WDC. California State Teachers Retirement System increased its holdings in Western Digital by 64,424.3% in the second quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 338,388,746 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $216,135,660,000 after buying an additional 337,864,310 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Western Digital in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $788,729,000. Soroban Capital Partners LP lifted its stake in Western Digital by 1,926.3% in 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 acquiring an additional 2,910,062 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc bought a new stake in Western Digital in the second quarter worth approximately $1,602,927,000. Finally, Polar Capital Holdings Plc acquired a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter worth $221,800,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently 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.