Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) to Issue Dividend Increase – $0.15 Per Share

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, June 17th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 5th. This is a 20.0% increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13.

Western Digital has increased its dividend by an average of 0.6%per year over the last three years. Western Digital has a dividend payout ratio of 9.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Research analysts expect Western Digital to earn $13.68 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.50 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 3.7%.

Western Digital Trading Down 2.8%

NASDAQ:WDC traded down $12.29 on Friday, reaching $422.24. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 7,609,358 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,264,216. Western Digital has a 1-year low of $43.60 and a 1-year high of $446.62. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $314.33 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $233.19. The firm has a market cap of $143.15 billion, a PE ratio of 42.88, a PEG ratio of 0.86 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The business had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Western Digital will post 8.61 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday. New Street Research set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Mizuho upped their target price on shares of Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. TD Cowen increased their target price on Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Eighteen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $352.78.

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.