Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock Rating Lowered by Fox Advisors

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) was downgraded by stock analysts at Fox Advisors from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating in a research report issued to clients and investors on Monday, MarketBeat Ratings reports.

A number of other brokerages also recently commented on WDC. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $488.00 to $650.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, June 15th. Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $575.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $350.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $400.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $450.46.

Western Digital Price Performance

WDC stock opened at $746.23 on Monday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $487.12 and a 200 day moving average price of $328.32. The stock has a market cap of $257.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 44.55 and a beta of 2.13. Western Digital has a fifty-two week low of $58.66 and a fifty-two week high of $799.87.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The firm had revenue of $3.34 billion during 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 business’s revenue 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. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Western Digital will post 9.6 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Bruce E. Kiddoo sold 750 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $528.52, for a total transaction of $396,390.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 3,903 shares in the company, valued at $2,062,813.56. The trade was a 16.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total value of $8,236,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares in the company, valued at $246,342,096. This trade represents 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. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of WDC. Rakuten Securities Inc. grew its stake in Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares in the last quarter. Avion Wealth grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 163.8% in the 4th quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares in the last quarter. Valley Wealth Managers Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Swiss RE Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $32,000. Finally, BOKF NA raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 6,700.0% during the 3rd quarter. BOKF NA now owns 272 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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.