Semanteon Capital Management LP Invests $571,000 in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Semanteon Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor purchased 4,760 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $571,000. Western Digital accounts for 0.7% of Semanteon Capital Management LP’s holdings, making the stock its 18th biggest holding.

Other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Trivest Advisors Ltd grew its position in Western Digital by 463.4% in the 3rd quarter. Trivest Advisors Ltd now owns 920,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $110,455,000 after buying an additional 756,700 shares in the last quarter. Personal CFO Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in Western Digital in the third quarter worth approximately $353,000. Tredje AP fonden boosted its stake in Western Digital by 46.9% during the 3rd quarter. Tredje AP fonden now owns 37,110 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $4,455,000 after purchasing an additional 11,848 shares in the last quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $6,674,000. Finally, Bridgewater Advisors Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $167,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently weighed in on WDC. Barclays raised their target price on Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Argus set a $300.00 price objective on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Benchmark upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Finally, TD Cowen increased their target price on Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Trading Up 0.3%

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $285.52 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. The stock has a market cap of $96.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.64, a PEG ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 1.80. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $227.88 and a 200 day simple moving average of $158.98. Western Digital Corporation has a 52 week low of $28.83 and a 52 week high of $309.90.

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

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total transaction of $277,956.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 3,863 shares in the company, valued at $596,524.46. The trade was a 31.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total transaction of $9,616,638.18. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708 in the last ninety days. 0.18% of the stock is 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.