Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Shares Up 8.6% – Should You Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) shares rose 8.6% during trading on Friday . The company traded as high as $283.93 and last traded at $282.58. Approximately 9,818,070 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 10% from the average daily volume of 10,851,529 shares. The stock had previously closed at $260.19.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board approved an incremental $4 billion share-repurchase program — a large, explicit capital-return move that supports demand for the stock and signals confidence from the board. Reuters: Western Digital adds $4 billion to buyback plan
• Positive Sentiment: Innovation Day unveiled an AI-focused storage roadmap (claims of up to 8x performance improvements and path to 100TB+ HDDs), reinforcing WDC’s positioning in AI training/data-center storage — supports longer-term demand expectations. PCWorld: WD maps out 8x performance boosts
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst community is upgrading WDC and lifting targets (several notes to Buy/Overweight and new street-high targets), which fuels short-term momentum and buy-side interest. Barchart: New street-high price target
• Positive Sentiment: Recent quarterly results beat estimates (revenue and EPS strength) and reinforce the “memory supercycle” / AI-driven storage demand thesis — supports earnings growth expectations. Zacks: WDC is up 5.85% in one week
• Neutral Sentiment: Sandisk’s dramatic rally (spun out from WDC) is lifting sentiment across the memory/storage complex — helpful for WDC thematically but also highlights increased sector volatility and comparatives. MarketBeat: Sandisk’s Swings Are Getting Bigger
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader policy moves to secure supply chains for critical minerals are supportive over the long run for domestic hardware supply, but they are not an immediate stock catalyst. MarketBeat: Critical minerals policy
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares (~$5.1M) in early February (SEC filing) — an insider sale that can prompt some near-term profit-taking despite his continued large ownership. SEC filing: Insider sale disclosure

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday. China Renaissance initiated coverage on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, December 5th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective on the stock. Loop Capital upped their target price on shares of Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 13th. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price target 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. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $95.81 billion, a PE ratio of 28.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.73 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $205.35 and its 200-day simple moving average is $144.34.

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

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 5.02%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total value of $9,616,638.18. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total value of $1,833,922.20. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 136,538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $36,932,163.62. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock valued at $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in WDC. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its holdings in Western Digital by 7.7% during the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,698,000 after acquiring an additional 3,019 shares in the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $56,000 after purchasing an additional 967 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the second quarter worth $307,000. Ameritas Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the second quarter worth $83,000. Finally, QRG Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at $286,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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.