Western Digital Corporation $WDC Shares Purchased by Trivest Advisors Ltd

Trivest Advisors Ltd grew its position in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 463.4% during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 920,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 756,700 shares during the period. Western Digital accounts for about 3.5% of Trivest Advisors Ltd’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 12th largest position. Trivest Advisors Ltd owned about 0.27% of Western Digital worth $110,455,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. SYM FINANCIAL Corp purchased a new position in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at about $225,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 12.3% in 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 acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the third quarter valued at about $641,000. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at about $636,000. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in Western Digital by 7.1% during the 2nd quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 118,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $7,594,000 after acquiring an additional 7,913 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Western Digital Stock Performance

Shares of WDC stock opened at $285.52 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $96.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.64, a PEG ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 1.80. Western Digital Corporation has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $309.90. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $227.88 and its 200-day simple moving average is $158.98. 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 issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The business 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 business’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.77 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have issued reports on WDC shares. Mizuho increased their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $230.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Morgan Stanley lifted 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. Finally, New Street Research set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital 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 owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total transaction 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 ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

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.