Braun Stacey Associates Inc. Has $56.12 Million Stock Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Braun Stacey Associates Inc. lowered its stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 14.7% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 207,494 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 35,872 shares during the quarter. Western Digital makes up 1.9% of Braun Stacey Associates Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest holding. Braun Stacey Associates Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $56,125,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its stake in Western Digital by 4,070.0% during the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 407 shares in the last quarter. Avion Wealth increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 163.8% in the fourth 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. Swiss RE Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the fourth quarter worth approximately $32,000. BOKF NA raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 6,700.0% during the third quarter. BOKF NA now owns 272 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 268 shares during the period. Finally, JPL Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, May 26th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price for the company in a report on Tuesday, March 31st. Barclays increased their target price on Western Digital from $450.00 to $620.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 27th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $450.46.

Western Digital Stock Performance

WDC stock opened at $586.45 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $518.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $344.63. Western Digital Corporation has a 52 week low of $62.65 and a 52 week high of $799.87. The stock has a market cap of $202.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.01 and a beta of 2.13.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.33. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The firm had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.36 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

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

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 4,674 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $443.19, for a total value of $2,071,470.06. Following the transaction, the insider owned 90,041 shares in the company, valued at $39,905,270.79. The trade was a 4.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 598,150 shares in the company, valued at approximately $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 ninety days, insiders sold 29,322 shares of company stock valued at $12,768,550. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Key Headlines Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Micron’s strong quarterly results reinforced the AI-driven memory shortage theme, which has lifted Western Digital along with other memory stocks. Western Digital Stock And Seagate Get Boost From Big Micron Earnings Beat
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts and commentators continue to highlight strong AI memory demand, rising estimate revisions, and favorable supply-demand dynamics for WDC. Micron’s Robust Q3 Results Raise Investor Attention on These 3 Stocks
• Neutral Sentiment: Reports of SK Hynix planning a Nasdaq listing on July 10 add more attention to the broader memory ecosystem, but the direct impact on WDC is unclear. Is the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) a Buy Before July 10?
• Negative Sentiment: After the sector’s big rally, memory and semiconductor stocks are pulling back as investors take profits and worry that memory and storage costs may have gotten ahead of fundamentals. MU, SNDK, WDC: 3 Key Reasons Why Memory Stocks Are Falling Today
• Negative Sentiment: Broader tech-sector weakness is weighing on WDC alongside other chip names, adding to the selloff in the group. Semiconductor stocks retreat over worries about memory costs

Western Digital 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.