Handelsbanken Fonder AB Purchases 13,300 Shares of Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Handelsbanken Fonder AB lifted its position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 15.4% in the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 99,800 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 13,300 shares during the quarter. Handelsbanken Fonder AB’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $11,982,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. ORG Partners LLC raised its holdings in Western Digital by 124.5% in the 3rd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares during the period. Rakuten Securities Inc. grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the last quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 86.9% in the second quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 441 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% in the third quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares during the period. Finally, Grove Bank & Trust bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the third quarter worth about $30,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In related news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total value of $5,108,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the 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 SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 67,606 shares of company stock valued at $17,296,369. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

WDC has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen downgraded Western Digital from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 21st. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $340.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Monday, February 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Down 0.9%

Shares of WDC stock opened at $279.70 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $94.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.65 and a beta of 1.75. Western Digital Corporation has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $309.90. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $238.58 and a 200 day moving average price of $166.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.77 EPS. Analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current 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 dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.