Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Insider Vidyadhara Gubbi Sells 10,148 Shares

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) insider Vidyadhara Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total transaction of $2,743,105.88. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 107,794 shares in the company, valued at $29,137,796.14. This represents a 8.60% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Western Digital Stock Down 1.3%

WDC traded down $3.48 during midday trading on Friday, reaching $255.55. 1,294,872 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 10,178,938. The company has a market cap of $86.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.63, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.60 and a beta of 1.76. Western Digital Corporation has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $309.90. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $245.11 and its 200 day moving average price is $170.68. 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 (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.Western Digital’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 12.3% during the third quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 52,317 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $6,281,000 after buying an additional 5,731 shares during the period. LBP AM SA bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the third quarter valued at approximately $641,000. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd purchased a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $34,244,000. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $636,000. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its holdings in Western Digital by 7.1% during the 2nd quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 118,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $7,594,000 after acquiring an additional 7,913 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Company completed the spin‑off of its flash business and repositioned as a pure‑play HDD supplier, raising cash (a reported $3.1B stake sale) and locking long‑term supply deals that fully book HDD production through at least 2028 — a structural move that supports revenue visibility and higher-margin HDD demand from hyperscalers. Western Digital Bets On Pure HDD Future With Hyperscaler AI Demand
• Positive Sentiment: Strong AI-driven storage thesis: management and analysts cite sold‑out nearline capacity for 2026, long‑term cloud/hyperscaler commitments, and guidance that points to material revenue and margin expansion as AI workloads (especially video and large model data) raise demand for high‑capacity HDDs. This narrative is driving investor rotation back into WDC after a pullback. Western Digital: AI’s Unsung Storage Backbone
• Neutral Sentiment: Street coverage remains bullish overall (multiple buy/overweight ratings and a wide range of price targets; median near ~$253.5), which supports liquidity and trading interest but highlights dispersion in valuation expectations. QuiverQuant WDC coverage & analyst summary
• Neutral Sentiment: Retail/consumer promotions (example: WD SN850X 2TB pricing anomalies at Walmart) are noise for enterprise HDD thesis but can create short‑term retail attention. This 2TB WD SN850X is cheaper from Walmart than the equivalent 1TB model in a strange deal
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and cycle risk flagged by analysts: some note that recent share gains may be cyclical and that multiples now reflect peak expectations for AI storage demand — raising the risk of a correction if hyperscaler demand softens or capacity normalizes. Western Digital: Strong AI Tailwinds, But Valuation Signals Cyclical Peak Risk
• Negative Sentiment: Significant insider selling reported (multiple senior exec sales disclosed on March 4); persistent seller activity from insiders can weigh on sentiment even if sales are routine diversification. Insider sale filing: Vidyadhara K. Gubbi

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have commented on WDC. Argus set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $340.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, UBS Group set a $306.00 target price on Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 30th. One 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 company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $265.58.

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.