iA Global Asset Management Inc. Purchases New Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

iA Global Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 48,942 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $5,876,000.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 2.0% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $593,045,000 after buying an additional 186,030 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% in the second quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $354,247,000 after acquiring an additional 431,419 shares in the last quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. lifted its stake in Western Digital by 17.1% in the second quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. now owns 3,735,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $239,022,000 after acquiring an additional 545,500 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth about $220,680,000. Finally, Soroban Capital Partners LP grew its holdings in Western Digital by 1,926.3% during the 2nd quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $195,882,000 after acquiring an additional 2,910,062 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the subject of several recent research reports. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $165.00 to $270.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. Robert W. Baird set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, October 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “neutral” rating and set a $165.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, January 9th. Finally, China Renaissance initiated coverage on Western Digital in a report on Friday, December 5th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price target on the stock. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Western Digital currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $206.29.

Western Digital Trading Down 2.8%

NASDAQ:WDC opened at $236.39 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $80.82 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.41, a PEG ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.78. Western Digital Corporation has a 52 week low of $28.83 and a 52 week high of $247.94. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $182.54 and a 200 day moving average of $129.85.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.57 by $0.21. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.The business had revenue of $2.82 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.72 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.78 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 27.4% on a year-over-year basis. Western Digital has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-2.030 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 4th were paid a $0.125 dividend. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. This is a boost from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 4th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.28%.

Trending Headlines about Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Multiple analyst upgrades and sizable price‑target increases (Citigroup, Rosenblatt, Bank of America and others) have lifted sentiment and supported the rally into record highs. Forget the Chips, Buy Memory
• Positive Sentiment: AI-driven demand is rotating investor money from GPUs to storage — institutional flow into NAND/SSD and HDD suppliers is increasing pricing power and revenue visibility for WDC’s data‑center HDDs and SSD roadmap. AI-money moving to storage
• Positive Sentiment: WDC has strong recent earnings‑surprise history and Wall Street expects continued earnings growth; that raises the chance of another beat at the upcoming quarterly report. Will WDC beat estimates?
• Neutral Sentiment: Corporate cadence: WDC is hosting an Innovation Day and has raised its dividend — both can reinforce the narrative but are event‑driven and dependent on execution/communication. Innovation Day / dividend context
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity: a small officer sale (447 shares) was disclosed; size and frequency indicate routine liquidity rather than management signaling. SEC filing
• Negative Sentiment: Price pullback today amid broader market strength — traders appear to be taking profits after WDC hit fresh 52‑week/all‑time highs. WDC stock dips while market gains
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and cycle risk concerns: several commentators warn the rally could be stretched and exposed to a pullback if supply/pricing dynamics normalize or AI demand growth slows. Pullback risk analysis

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.69, for a total transaction of $3,013,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 645,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $97,265,422.23. The trade was a 3.01% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 447 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $229.00, for a total transaction of $102,363.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 143,318 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $32,819,822. This represents a 0.31% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 26,816 shares of company stock worth $4,116,148 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Company 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.