LSV Asset Management Has $181.44 Million Stock Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

LSV Asset Management lifted its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 10.0% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,511,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 137,112 shares during the period. LSV Asset Management owned 0.44% of Western Digital worth $181,436,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its holdings in Western Digital by 7.7% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,698,000 after buying an additional 3,019 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew 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 acquiring an additional 967 shares during the period. Sivia Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth about $307,000. Aberdeen Group plc raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 4.7% in the 2nd quarter. Aberdeen Group plc now owns 229,917 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $14,712,000 after purchasing an additional 10,280 shares during the period. Finally, Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC lifted its stake in Western Digital by 96.0% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 53,570 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,428,000 after purchasing an additional 26,234 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on the company. New Street Research set a $250.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. UBS Group set a $306.00 price target on Western Digital in a report on Friday, January 30th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $230.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, January 16th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Western Digital presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

Western Digital stock opened at $273.74 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. Western Digital Corporation has a 52 week low of $28.83 and a 52 week high of $296.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $92.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 1.80. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $212.21 and a 200-day moving average of $148.64.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The business had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.77 EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In related news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total value of $1,833,922.20. Following the transaction, the insider owned 136,538 shares in the company, valued at $36,932,163.62. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at $159,288,807.84. This represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders have sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.