Western Digital Corporation $WDC Shares Sold by Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund

Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund cut its stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 15.1% during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 130,650 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 23,243 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $15,686,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. SYM FINANCIAL Corp acquired a new stake in Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $225,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Western Digital by 12.3% during the third quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 52,317 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $6,281,000 after buying an additional 5,731 shares in the last quarter. LBP AM SA purchased a new stake in Western Digital during the third quarter worth approximately $641,000. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 9.6% in the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 30,434 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,938,000 after acquiring an additional 2,656 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Western Digital by 7.1% in the 2nd quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 118,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $7,594,000 after acquiring an additional 7,913 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’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 transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at $159,288,807.84. This represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total value of $277,956.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 3,863 shares in the company, valued at approximately $596,524.46. This represents a 31.79% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the subject of a number of research reports. Susquehanna reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $285.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, February 6th. Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $230.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, January 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 target price on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, Argus set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $284.10 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $307.50. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $214.67 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $149.58. The firm has a market cap of $96.32 billion, a PE ratio of 28.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.80.

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. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The business’s revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

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

Western Digital 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.