Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) CEO Sells $5,108,800.00 in Stock

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total value of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link.

Western Digital Price Performance

WDC traded down $20.83 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $269.41. 14,747,385 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 10,951,565. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $198.69 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $140.59. Western Digital Corporation has a 52-week low of $28.83 and a 52-week high of $296.50. The company has a market capitalization of $91.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.02, a PEG ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 1.80. 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 posted its quarterly earnings data 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 for 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%.Western Digital’s revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.77 EPS. On average, equities analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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 issued a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently issued reports on WDC. Benchmark raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Citigroup upped their price target on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Loop Capital increased their target price on shares of Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Finally, Susquehanna lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $135.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $262.25.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its stake in Western Digital by 7.7% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,698,000 after purchasing an additional 3,019 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after purchasing an additional 967 shares during the period. Sivia Capital Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $307,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 46,586 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,981,000 after acquiring an additional 1,191 shares during the period. Finally, Ameritas Advisory Services LLC acquired a new stake in Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth $83,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

More Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board authorizes an additional $4 billion share‑repurchase program, signaling management thinks the stock remains undervalued and returning cash to shareholders; this buyback has been a near‑term price support driver. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Company unveiled an AI‑focused storage roadmap (including a path to 100TB+ HDDs and UltraSMR adoption) at Innovation Day — this reinforces WDC’s positioning as a supplier of high‑capacity data‑lake drives for AI workloads. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts are raising targets and recommen­dations (Mizuho and Rosenblatt among those updating coverage to an outperform/buy with ~$340 targets), supporting upside expectations and institutional interest. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Recent earnings and forward estimate revisions are improving — analysts note stronger-than-expected results and upward EPS revisions, which underpin near‑term upside potential. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Macro theme: the “memory supercycle”/AI infrastructure rotation is boosting both high‑speed flash (spun‑out SanDisk) and high‑capacity HDD demand — a structural tailwind for WDC’s data‑center HDD business. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: U.S. policy efforts to diversify critical‑minerals supply chains could help long‑term hardware supply security but effects are multi‑year and indirect for WDC. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Short‑term risk: profit‑taking and volatility after a strong run (and spillover from Sandisk’s wild intraday swings) can pressure WDC even when fundamentals are constructive; elevated trading volume suggests some traders are locking gains. Article Title

About Western Digital

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.