Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. Reduces Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Crossmark Global Holdings Inc. lessened its holdings in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 30.2% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund owned 151,757 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 65,515 shares during the period. Crossmark Global Holdings Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $26,143,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. ORG Partners LLC increased its stake in Western Digital by 124.5% in the third 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 during the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 4,070.0% during the 2nd quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 407 shares during the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% in the 3rd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Westfuller Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Finally, Avion Wealth grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 163.8% in the 4th quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 113 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WDC has been the topic of several research analyst reports. New Street Research set a $250.00 price target on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. TD Cowen lifted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $325.00 to $500.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, May 1st. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $335.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $350.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $395.83.

Western Digital Price Performance

WDC opened at $480.09 on Friday. Western Digital Corporation has a 1-year low of $43.88 and a 1-year high of $483.87. The stock has a market cap of $165.48 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.66, a P/E/G ratio of 0.87 and a beta of 2.10. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $325.84 and its 200 day simple moving average is $242.16.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.33. The company had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Research analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Investors of record on Friday, June 5th will be issued a $0.15 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 5th. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 2.99%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total transaction of $2,743,105.88. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 107,794 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $29,137,796.14. This represents a 8.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total value of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $246,342,096. This represents a 3.24% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 53,679 shares of company stock valued at $18,049,314. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street analysts remain upbeat on Western Digital, with firms lifting price targets and Zacks upgrading the stock to Strong Buy, signaling rising confidence in demand trends and earnings momentum. Zacks Research upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: Coverage is highlighting Western Digital as a beneficiary of the AI memory and data-center storage supercycle, with demand for high-capacity storage solutions expected to stay elevated. Motley Fool article
• Positive Sentiment: The company’s recent earnings beat, raised guidance, and multiple target increases from analysts continue to support the stock’s sharp year-to-date gain and keep momentum investors engaged. Yahoo Finance article
• Neutral Sentiment: Western Digital also announced progress on simplifying its structure by unwinding its remaining Sandisk stake through share swaps and future distributions, which may help investors better value WDC as a more focused storage pure play. Yahoo Finance share swap article

Western Digital 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.