Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock Price Up 4.3% – Still a Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shot up 4.3% on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $279.79 and last traded at $273.74. 9,320,306 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 13% from the average session volume of 10,694,833 shares. The stock had previously closed at $262.56.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on WDC. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $340.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on Western Digital from $260.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Benchmark lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, UBS Group set a $306.00 price objective on Western Digital in a report on Friday, January 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $92.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.74 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $209.85 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $147.76. 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 posted 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. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion for 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 firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.77 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total transaction of $277,956.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 3,863 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $596,524.46. This represents a 31.79% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total value of $1,833,922.20. Following the sale, the insider owned 136,538 shares in the company, valued at approximately $36,932,163.62. This represents a 4.73% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDC. Avion Wealth increased its position in Western Digital by 163.8% during the 4th quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 113 shares during the period. ORG Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% during the 3rd 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. Concord Wealth Partners purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the fourth quarter valued at about $41,000. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its stake in Western Digital by 551.4% in the third quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Grove Bank & Trust bought a new position in Western Digital in the third quarter worth about $30,000. Institutional investors own 92.51% 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.