West Family Investments Inc. Buys Shares of 1,952 Western Digital Corporation $WDC

West Family Investments Inc. purchased a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 1,952 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $234,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of WDC. ORG Partners LLC grew its stake in Western Digital by 124.5% in the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its stake in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% during the 3rd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Grove Bank & Trust acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Westfuller Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 207.0% in the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 178 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 308 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.70, for a total transaction of $86,763.60. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 134,759 shares in the company, valued at $37,961,610.30. The trade was a 0.23% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total value of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $159,288,807.84. This represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 67,392 shares of company stock valued at $17,235,141 over the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have issued reports on WDC shares. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Benchmark lifted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wall Street Zen lowered Western Digital from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, February 21st. Finally, Bank of America upped their price target on Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. 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 stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Down 3.0%

WDC opened at $282.25 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $236.61 and a 200-day moving average of $164.14. The stock has a market capitalization of $95.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.31, a P/E/G ratio of 0.67 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Western Digital Corporation has a 1-year low of $28.83 and a 1-year high of $309.90.

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

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

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

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.