Kercheville Advisors LLC Makes New Investment in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Kercheville Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 1,200 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $325,000.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 7.7% in 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 buying an additional 3,019 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% in the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after acquiring an additional 967 shares in the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $307,000. Cresset Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter worth approximately $292,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 55.3% in the second quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,374 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,000 after acquiring an additional 845 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts recently commented on the company. TD Cowen increased their price objective on Western Digital from $325.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Western Digital from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a report on Friday, May 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their target price on shares of Western Digital from $530.00 to $650.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, June 12th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $450.46.

Western Digital Trading Down 8.4%

Shares of WDC stock opened at $670.75 on Wednesday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $501.56 and its 200-day moving average price is $335.98. The stock has a market cap of $231.19 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.04 and a beta of 2.13. Western Digital Corporation has a twelve month low of $60.56 and a twelve month high of $799.87.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital’s quarterly 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, equities research analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th were issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date was Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 3.58%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 2,475 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $556.24, for a total transaction of $1,376,694.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 85,154 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $47,366,060.96. The trade was a 2.82% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Bruce E. Kiddoo sold 750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $528.52, for a total value of $396,390.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 3,903 shares in the company, valued at $2,062,813.56. This represents a 16.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Key Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Analysts have remained constructive on Western Digital, with recent price-target increases from firms including JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, reflecting optimism about earnings power and AI-related storage demand.
• Positive Sentiment: Western Digital’s recent quarterly results beat expectations, with revenue and EPS ahead of estimates and management guiding for continued expansion, which supports the longer-term bull case.
• Neutral Sentiment: Investor attention has stayed high around Western Digital as the stock has rallied strongly this year, keeping it in focus as a leveraged AI-memory play.
• Negative Sentiment: Today’s decline appears tied to a broad selloff in semiconductor and memory names as investors worry about an AI-bubble-style valuation reset and weakness in Asian chip markets.
• Negative Sentiment: Western Digital also faces some near-term share-overhang concerns after disclosed share-exchange transactions involving Sandisk stock, which may have added pressure on the stock.

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.