Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. Buys New Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor bought 16,639 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,866,000.

Other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Rakuten Securities Inc. boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 407 shares during the last quarter. Avion Wealth boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 163.8% in the fourth quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. Swiss RE Ltd. bought a new stake in Western Digital in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $32,000. BOKF NA boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 6,700.0% in the third quarter. BOKF NA now owns 272 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 268 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JPL Wealth Management LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital in the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan raised its price target on Western Digital from $530 to $650 and reiterated an overweight rating, signaling more upside potential for the shares. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: The company announced a Sandisk share exchange with institutional investors, a move that has been interpreted as supportive of the stock and part of a broader capital strategy. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Western Digital highlighted AI-focused storage innovation at Computex, reinforcing the market’s view that it is well positioned to benefit from data-center and AI infrastructure spending. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts also pointed to strong free cash flow, a larger dividend, and a new $4 billion buyback plan, which supports the investment case by showing confidence in cash generation and shareholder returns. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Western Digital has been outperforming the broader market over the past year, and brokerages still generally rate the stock a moderate buy, which supports sentiment but is more of a confirmation than a new catalyst. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: One recent market note said WDC slipped with the broader market after a hotter-than-expected CPI report revived rate-hike concerns, showing that macro pressure can still weigh on the stock at times. Article Title

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 4,674 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $443.19, for a total transaction of $2,071,470.06. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 90,041 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,905,270.79. This represents a 4.93% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total value of $8,236,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550 over the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WDC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Mizuho increased their price target on Western Digital from $550.00 to $685.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, June 8th. Zacks Research upgraded Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Bank of America increased their price target on Western Digital to $495.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 price target on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, May 26th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “neutral” rating and set a $400.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, May 1st. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $443.71.

Western Digital Trading Up 6.4%

NASDAQ WDC opened at $562.92 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $194.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.61 and a beta of 2.13. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $447.23 and a 200 day simple moving average of $307.91. Western Digital Corporation has a 12 month low of $54.60 and a 12 month high of $602.54.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.Western Digital’s quarterly revenue was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.36 EPS. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be given a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is a boost from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 3.58%.

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.