Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock Price Up 8.6% – Here’s Why

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares were up 8.6% on Friday . The company traded as high as $283.93 and last traded at $282.58. Approximately 9,818,070 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 10% from the average daily volume of 10,851,529 shares. The stock had previously closed at $260.19.

Key Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board approved an incremental $4 billion share-repurchase program — a large, explicit capital-return move that supports demand for the stock and signals confidence from the board. Reuters: Western Digital adds $4 billion to buyback plan
• Positive Sentiment: Innovation Day unveiled an AI-focused storage roadmap (claims of up to 8x performance improvements and path to 100TB+ HDDs), reinforcing WDC’s positioning in AI training/data-center storage — supports longer-term demand expectations. PCWorld: WD maps out 8x performance boosts
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst community is upgrading WDC and lifting targets (several notes to Buy/Overweight and new street-high targets), which fuels short-term momentum and buy-side interest. Barchart: New street-high price target
• Positive Sentiment: Recent quarterly results beat estimates (revenue and EPS strength) and reinforce the “memory supercycle” / AI-driven storage demand thesis — supports earnings growth expectations. Zacks: WDC is up 5.85% in one week
• Neutral Sentiment: Sandisk’s dramatic rally (spun out from WDC) is lifting sentiment across the memory/storage complex — helpful for WDC thematically but also highlights increased sector volatility and comparatives. MarketBeat: Sandisk’s Swings Are Getting Bigger
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader policy moves to secure supply chains for critical minerals are supportive over the long run for domestic hardware supply, but they are not an immediate stock catalyst. MarketBeat: Critical minerals policy
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares (~$5.1M) in early February (SEC filing) — an insider sale that can prompt some near-term profit-taking despite his continued large ownership. SEC filing: Insider sale disclosure

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on WDC shares. Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 target price on Western Digital in a report on Monday. Zacks Research raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 13th. Truist Financial set a $310.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, January 31st. Finally, Argus set a $300.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $202.97 and its 200-day moving average price is $142.32. The company has a market cap of $95.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.34, a P/E/G ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.80.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.77 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total value of $272,272.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 3,585 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 26,816 shares of company stock worth $6,211,148. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 0.6% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,196,484,000 after buying an additional 243,177 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $593,045,000 after acquiring an additional 186,030 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% during the 2nd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after purchasing an additional 431,419 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 11.2% in 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 purchasing an additional 384,103 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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.