Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. Acquires 5,875 Shares of Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V. lifted its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 4.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 135,075 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 5,875 shares during the quarter. Mn Services Vermogensbeheer B.V.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $23,269,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. ORG Partners LLC boosted its stake in Western Digital by 124.5% during the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. increased its stake in 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 in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% during the third quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares during the period. Grove Bank & Trust acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, Westfuller Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Trading Up 7.5%

WDC opened at $270.49 on Wednesday. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $319.62. The firm has a market capitalization of $91.71 billion, a PE ratio of 27.13, a P/E/G ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 1.76. 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 company’s 50-day moving average is $274.30 and its 200 day moving average is $196.78.

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

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th were given a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Western Digital News Summary

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

• Positive Sentiment: Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded WDC to Outperform and doubled its price target (to ~$340), calling the recent sector selloff an overreaction and framing WDC as an attractive entry after the pullback. This upgrade and higher target are driving buy-side interest and price-target-driven flows. Bernstein Upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: Bernstein and other bullish notes argue the recent algorithmic dumping in storage presents a buying opportunity; that narrative is attracting dip-buyers into WDC and peers. Blockonomi
• Positive Sentiment: Operational/market proof points: a vendor (JetStor) announced an 80PB archive deployment using WD Ultrastar drives — a tangible data-center win that supports demand for high-capacity HDDs. JetStor Win
• Neutral Sentiment: Technical/product roadmap: coverage notes highlight WDC’s investment in next-gen HAMR and ePMR drives as a potential longer-term edge for capacity, margins and data-center share — a structural positive but not an immediate price mover. Zacks HAMR/ePMR
• Neutral Sentiment: Longer-term context pieces (10‑year return comparisons) and “buy the dip” commentary are circulating; useful for framing investor sentiment but not new fundamental news. 24/7 Wall St.
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s announcement of TurboQuant and related compression research has renewed concerns that algorithmic advances could reduce near-term demand for raw memory/storage capacity, triggering algorithmic/quant-driven selling across the group. That narrative pressured peers and contributed to recent volatility. TheStreet on TurboQuant
• Negative Sentiment: Sector chill: broader “memory trade” coverage notes and data show the high-momentum memory/storage rally has cooled, which can trigger profit-taking in WDC after a strong run. Investopedia
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling and large recent institutional rebalancing (documented in market data) are being cited by some commentary as a headwind that could limit near-term upside if selling persists. QuiverQuant analysis

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, 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 transaction of $9,616,638.18. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 8,518 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, March 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.32, for a total value of $2,174,815.76. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 99,276 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $25,347,148.32. The trade was a 7.90% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 92,795 shares of company stock worth $24,265,884. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have recently commented on the company. Barclays raised their target price on Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Bank of America increased their price target on Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Mizuho raised their price objective on Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 4th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein raised Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $275.75.

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.