Western Digital Corporation $WDC Shares Purchased by IFP Advisors Inc

IFP Advisors Inc boosted its stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 105.5% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 3,161 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,623 shares during the quarter. IFP Advisors Inc’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $545,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 7.7% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,698,000 after acquiring an additional 3,019 shares in the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after acquiring an additional 967 shares in the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $307,000. Cresset Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $292,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 55.3% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,374 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $152,000 after acquiring an additional 845 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was 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 $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total value of $2,743,105.88. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 107,794 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $29,137,796.14. The trade was a 8.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold 53,347 shares of company stock valued at $17,974,293 in the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

WDC has been the topic of several research reports. Bank of America raised their target price on Western Digital to $495.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, April 27th. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $500.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, May 1st. New Street Research set a $250.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price objective on Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $488.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, May 1st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $395.83.

Western Digital Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $484.28 on Tuesday. Western Digital Corporation has a twelve month low of $49.00 and a twelve month high of $525.15. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $377.48 and a 200-day simple moving average of $271.52. The stock has a market capitalization of $166.92 billion, a PE ratio of 28.91 and a beta of 2.10.

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

Western Digital Increases Dividend

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

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.