Highland Peak Capital LLC Reduces Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Highland Peak Capital LLC decreased its holdings in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 69.9% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm owned 157,252 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 365,987 shares during the period. Western Digital accounts for about 6.2% of Highland Peak Capital LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 7th largest position. Highland Peak Capital LLC’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $18,880,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of WDC. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Western Digital by 0.6% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,196,484,000 after buying an additional 243,177 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Western Digital by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $593,045,000 after acquiring an additional 186,030 shares in the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% in the 2nd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after acquiring an additional 431,419 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 11.8% in the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,804,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,737,000 after acquiring an additional 402,981 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total transaction of $9,616,638.18. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 64,805 shares of company stock worth $16,846,612 over the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Western Digital Trading Up 4.3%

NASDAQ WDC opened at $261.30 on Thursday. Western Digital Corporation has a 12-month low of $28.83 and a 12-month high of $309.90. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $243.52 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $170.07. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The stock has a market cap of $88.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.21, a P/E/G ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 1.76.

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

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the company. Cantor Fitzgerald raised their price objective on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Argus set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. TD Cowen raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Investor note argues WDC is being re-rated as AI workloads drive multi-year demand for high-capacity nearline HDDs; company says 2026 HDD capacity is sold out, guided for strong revenue and gross-margin expansion, and has tightened its capital/portfolio focus — this underpins the bullish thesis for durable enterprise/cloud demand. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Market write-ups tie WDC’s rebound to renewed investor focus on AI video and hyperscaler storage needs after a pullback; momentum-driven snap-back + rotation into higher-beta storage names supported the move. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Coverage highlights how AI-generated video and other AI workloads can materially expand capacity requirements vs. traditional data, reinforcing expectations for sustained nearline HDD demand — a direct tailwind for WDC’s product mix. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: UBS raised memory-price forecasts and price targets after industry meetings, signaling broader cloud/datacenter spend strength — a supportive macro backdrop for storage suppliers (though impact differs across HDD/SSD/memory product lines). Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: WDC’s presentation at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference contained management commentary reinforcing visibility into hyperscaler plans and capacity allocation — useful for modeling but not a new catalyst by itself. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Brokerage consensus remains constructive (consensus “Moderate Buy” / many recent buy/outperform ratings), which supports sentiment but could limit near-term upside if already priced in. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Sector-wide volatility: semiconductor/memory-related sell-offs tied to Middle East tensions and smartphone weakness show macro/geopolitical risk that can pressure high-multiple tech names and trigger short-term pullbacks in storage stocks. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Significant insider selling has been reported recently, which some investors view as a governance/conviction concern even as company fundamentals improve — a potential psychological headwind for the stock. Read More.

Western Digital 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.