Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock Price Down 13.2% – Here’s Why

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares dropped 13.2% on Friday . The company traded as low as $579.51 and last traded at $586.45. 23,264,743 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 154% from the average session volume of 9,168,826 shares. The stock had previously closed at $675.39.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Micron’s strong earnings and bullish outlook reinforced the AI memory shortage narrative, which has been a major tailwind for Western Digital and the broader storage complex. Western Digital Stock And Seagate Get Boost From Big Micron Earnings Beat
• Positive Sentiment: Apple’s reported concern about rising memory costs adds another signal that supply remains tight, supporting the idea that Western Digital can benefit from stronger pricing and demand. Apple Just Handed These 4 Memory Stocks Their Best News of the Year
• Neutral Sentiment: Roundhill’s memory ETF coverage highlighted that SK Hynix plans to list on Nasdaq on July 10, another reminder that investor attention is clustering around the memory-chip space. Is the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) a Buy Before July 10?
• Neutral Sentiment: Analysts and market commentary continue to frame WDC as a leveraged beneficiary of AI storage demand, but also note that the stock has already had a massive run, which may lead to choppy trading around pullbacks. Micron’s Robust Q3 Results Raise Investor Attention on These 3 Stocks
• Negative Sentiment: Friday’s sector-wide selloff hit memory and storage stocks after the post-earnings rally cooled, with WDC giving back some of its recent gains alongside Micron and SanDisk. MU, SNDK, WDC: 3 Key Reasons Why Memory Stocks Are Falling Today

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently commented on WDC. Robert W. Baird increased their target price on shares of Western Digital from $310.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Monday, May 4th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $500.00 to $575.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Monday, June 1st. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Barclays lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $450.00 to $620.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 27th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on Western Digital to $660.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $450.46.

Western Digital Trading Down 13.2%

The company has a market capitalization of $202.14 billion, a P/E ratio of 35.01 and a beta of 2.13. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $513.57 and its 200 day moving average is $342.93.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results 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 business had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.36 EPS. The company’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. On average, analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.58 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $246,342,096. This represents a 3.24% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at 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 Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $443.19, for a total value of $2,071,470.06. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 90,041 shares in the company, valued at approximately $39,905,270.79. This represents a 4.93% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550 in the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDC. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the 2nd quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the period. Avion Wealth increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 163.8% during the fourth quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 113 shares during the period. Valley Wealth Managers Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the first quarter valued at about $32,000. Swiss RE Ltd. bought a new position in Western Digital in the fourth quarter worth about $32,000. Finally, BOKF NA raised its stake in Western Digital by 6,700.0% in the third quarter. BOKF NA now owns 272 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 268 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other 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.