Jefferies Group LLC reissued their hold rating on shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in a research report report published on Friday. The firm currently has a $90.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock.
A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the company. Vetr cut Western Digital Corporation from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating and set a $95.94 price objective for the company. in a report on Wednesday, August 16th. BidaskClub cut Western Digital Corporation from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Saturday, August 12th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a buy rating and set a $120.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital Corporation in a report on Monday, August 7th. Zacks Investment Research upgraded Western Digital Corporation from a sell rating to a hold rating in a report on Wednesday, August 2nd. Finally, J P Morgan Chase & Co restated an overweight rating on shares of Western Digital Corporation in a report on Tuesday, August 1st. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twenty-nine have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. Western Digital Corporation has a consensus rating of Buy and a consensus target price of $104.66.
Shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) opened at 83.20 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $24.29 billion, a P/E ratio of 62.09 and a beta of 1.22. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $87.67 and its 200 day moving average price is $84.55. Western Digital Corporation has a 52 week low of $45.25 and a 52 week high of $95.77.
Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 27th. The data storage provider reported $2.93 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.51 by $0.42. Western Digital Corporation had a return on equity of 21.23% and a net margin of 2.08%. The company had revenue of $4.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $4.82 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.79 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 38.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post $12.54 EPS for the current fiscal year.
The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, October 16th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 29th will be given a dividend of $0.50 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, September 28th. This represents a $2.00 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.40%. Western Digital Corporation’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 156.25%.
In other Western Digital Corporation news, EVP Jacqueline Demaria sold 14,358 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.53, for a total transaction of $1,213,681.74. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 75,772 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,405,007.16. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, COO Michael D. Cordano sold 4,954 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $94.98, for a total transaction of $470,530.92. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 66,092 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,277,418.16. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 123,644 shares of company stock worth $10,946,300 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.46% of the company’s stock.
Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDC. Arizona State Retirement System boosted its position in Western Digital Corporation by 1.0% in the first quarter. Arizona State Retirement System now owns 71,313 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,885,000 after buying an additional 700 shares during the period. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Western Digital Corporation by 16.9% in the first quarter. Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. now owns 5,610 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $463,000 after buying an additional 810 shares during the period. Advisory Services Network LLC bought a new position in Western Digital Corporation during the first quarter worth about $704,000. Korea Investment CORP boosted its position in Western Digital Corporation by 14.7% in the second quarter. Korea Investment CORP now owns 595,049 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $52,721,000 after buying an additional 76,459 shares during the period. Finally, Exane Derivatives boosted its position in Western Digital Corporation by 7,574.0% in the first quarter. Exane Derivatives now owns 35,761 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,951,000 after buying an additional 35,295 shares during the period. 81.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.
About Western Digital Corporation
Western Digital Corporation (Western Digital) is a developer, manufacturer and provider of data storage devices and solutions that address the needs of the information technology (IT) industry and the infrastructure that enables the proliferation of data in virtually every industry. The Company’s portfolio of offerings addresses three categories: Datacenter Devices and Solutions (capacity and performance enterprise hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise solid state drives (SSDs), datacenter software and system solutions); Client Devices (mobile, desktop, gaming and digital video hard drives, client SSDs, embedded products and wafers), and Client Solutions (removable products, hard drive content solutions and flash content solutions).
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