44,801 Shares in Western Digital Corporation $WDC Purchased by Gunderson Capital Management Inc.

Gunderson Capital Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 44,801 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $7,718,000. Western Digital accounts for approximately 3.5% of Gunderson Capital Management Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 11th largest holding.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. ORG Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% during the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 117 shares during the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. boosted 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 valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 407 shares during the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. grew its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 204 shares during the period. Grove Bank & Trust bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Westfuller Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded WDC to Outperform and doubled its price target (to ~$340), calling the recent sector selloff an overreaction and framing WDC as an attractive entry after the pullback. This upgrade and higher target are driving buy-side interest and price-target-driven flows. Bernstein Upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: Bernstein and other bullish notes argue the recent algorithmic dumping in storage presents a buying opportunity; that narrative is attracting dip-buyers into WDC and peers. Blockonomi
• Positive Sentiment: Operational/market proof points: a vendor (JetStor) announced an 80PB archive deployment using WD Ultrastar drives — a tangible data-center win that supports demand for high-capacity HDDs. JetStor Win
• Neutral Sentiment: Technical/product roadmap: coverage notes highlight WDC’s investment in next-gen HAMR and ePMR drives as a potential longer-term edge for capacity, margins and data-center share — a structural positive but not an immediate price mover. Zacks HAMR/ePMR
• Neutral Sentiment: Longer-term context pieces (10?year return comparisons) and “buy the dip” commentary are circulating; useful for framing investor sentiment but not new fundamental news. 24/7 Wall St.
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s announcement of TurboQuant and related compression research has renewed concerns that algorithmic advances could reduce near-term demand for raw memory/storage capacity, triggering algorithmic/quant-driven selling across the group. That narrative pressured peers and contributed to recent volatility. TheStreet on TurboQuant
• Negative Sentiment: Sector chill: broader “memory trade” coverage notes and data show the high-momentum memory/storage rally has cooled, which can trigger profit-taking in WDC after a strong run. Investopedia
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling and large recent institutional rebalancing (documented in market data) are being cited by some commentary as a headwind that could limit near-term upside if selling persists. QuiverQuant analysis

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the company. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price objective on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. UBS Group set a $306.00 price target on Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, China Renaissance assumed coverage on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $275.75.

Western Digital Stock Up 7.5%

NASDAQ:WDC opened at $270.49 on Wednesday. Western Digital Corporation has a 1 year low of $28.83 and a 1 year high of $319.62. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $274.30 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $196.78. The stock has a market cap of $91.71 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.13, a PEG ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 1.76. 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 (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.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 company earned $1.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total value of $2,501,349.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 121,682 shares in the company, valued at $32,643,630.14. This represents a 7.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was 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. This represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884. Corporate insiders own 0.18% 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.