Western Digital Corporation $WDC Shares Purchased by Public Sector Pension Investment Board

Public Sector Pension Investment Board grew its holdings in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 777.4% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 293,240 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 259,820 shares during the period. Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $35,206,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. SYM FINANCIAL Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter valued at about $225,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its position in Western Digital by 12.3% in 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 acquiring an additional 5,731 shares in the last quarter. LBP AM SA purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $641,000. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 9.6% during the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 30,434 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,938,000 after purchasing an additional 2,656 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 7.1% during the second quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 118,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $7,594,000 after purchasing an additional 7,913 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Western Digital news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total value of $277,956.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 3,863 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $596,524.46. This trade represents a 31.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total value of $1,833,922.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 136,538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,932,163.62. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. New Street Research set a $250.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $340.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. TD Cowen lifted their target price on Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Benchmark lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. 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 stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Up 3.8%

Shares of Western Digital stock opened at $284.10 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $214.67 and a 200 day moving average price of $149.58. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $307.50. The firm has a market cap of $96.32 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.50, a P/E/G ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The business’s revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.77 EPS. On average, sell-side 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 announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be issued 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 is 5.02%.

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.