Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.13

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) announced a quarterly dividend on Thursday, January 29th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a dividend of 0.125 per share by the data storage provider on Wednesday, March 18th. This represents a c) annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th.

Western Digital has raised its dividend by an average of 0.6%annually over the last three years. Western Digital has a payout ratio of 9.1% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Western Digital to earn $8.15 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.50 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 6.1%.

Western Digital Stock Down 7.3%

NASDAQ:WDC traded down $20.25 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $258.16. 8,903,479 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 9,588,625. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42. Western Digital has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $285.42. The company has a market capitalization of $88.26 billion, a PE ratio of 37.68, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.78. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $191.38 and a 200 day simple moving average of $135.34.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.The business had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.77 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Western Digital will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on WDC shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $220.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday. Barclays set a $325.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday. Loop Capital boosted their target price on Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Finally, Susquehanna raised their price target on Western Digital from $135.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, January 16th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $244.95.

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.