Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Trading Down 4.3% – Here’s Why

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares dropped 4.3% on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $612.41 and last traded at $641.7280. Approximately 11,686,983 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 29% from the average session volume of 9,028,437 shares. The stock had previously closed at $670.75.

Key Headlines Impacting Western Digital

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

• Negative Sentiment: Memory and storage stocks were hit by a sector-wide selloff, with Western Digital caught up in the decline after a sharp drop in Korean chip names and renewed AI bubble/valuation concerns. Western Digital (WDC) Stock Slides As AI Memory Selloff Hits Chipmakers
• Negative Sentiment: Investors are also watching a potential share-supply overhang tied to Western Digital’s recent exchange transactions, which may be adding near-term pressure on the stock. Western Digital Slides as Chip Rout and Share-Swap Overhang Weigh on Stock
• Neutral Sentiment: Several articles highlighted Western Digital in the context of Prime Day SSD/HDD promotions, but these were mostly consumer-deals pieces and do not appear to be a major stock-moving catalyst. This WD Blue SSD is almost 60% off at Best Buy – and I recommend it
• Neutral Sentiment: A Trefis piece suggested the stock may be entering a re-rating phase because of a structural shift in customer buying behavior, which is more of a longer-term bullish thesis than an immediate catalyst. The Quiet Contract Shift Before Western Digital Stock’s Loud Re-Rating

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the subject of several analyst reports. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 31st. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Robert W. Baird increased their price objective on Western Digital from $310.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, May 4th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $400.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $450.46.

Western Digital Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $221.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 38.31 and a beta of 2.13. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $501.56 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $335.98.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The company had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.36 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 5th were paid a $0.15 dividend. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, June 5th. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 3.58%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total transaction of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares in the company, valued at approximately $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 4,674 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $443.19, for a total value of $2,071,470.06. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 90,041 shares in the company, valued at $39,905,270.79. This represents a 4.93% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550 in the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd bought a new stake in Western Digital in the third quarter worth about $34,244,000. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 399.8% in the third quarter. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. now owns 32,487 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $3,900,000 after purchasing an additional 25,987 shares during the period. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC lifted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 75.4% during the 4th quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC now owns 9,465 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,778,000 after buying an additional 4,068 shares in the last quarter. China Universal Asset Management Co. Ltd. bought a new position in Western Digital in the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,270,000. Finally, WESPAC Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the fourth quarter worth $793,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.