89,000 Shares in Western Digital Corporation $WDC Bought by Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC

Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in the third quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor bought 89,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $10,685,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. ORG Partners LLC increased its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% in the 3rd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after purchasing an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. grew its position in Western Digital by 551.4% during the third quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 204 shares during the period. Grove Bank & Trust purchased a new position in Western Digital in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Westfuller Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Western Digital in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 207.0% during the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 178 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on WDC shares. Loop Capital raised their price objective on Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. New Street Research set a $250.00 price target on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Western Digital presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In related news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the company’s 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. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Western Digital Stock Performance

NASDAQ:WDC opened at $281.58 on Tuesday. 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 firm has a market cap of $95.47 billion, a PE ratio of 28.24, a P/E/G ratio of 0.65 and a beta of 1.79. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $219.16 and a 200-day simple moving average of $153.62. Western Digital Corporation has a 1-year low of $28.83 and a 1-year high of $307.50.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released 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. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.77 EPS. Western Digital’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

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.