Truist Financial Corp Cuts Holdings in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Truist Financial Corp trimmed its holdings in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 9.9% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 37,012 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 4,053 shares during the quarter. Truist Financial Corp’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $6,376,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of WDC. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $791,317,000. Fred Alger Management LLC increased its holdings in Western Digital by 4,923.9% during the third quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 3,407,042 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $409,049,000 after buying an additional 3,339,225 shares during the period. Soroban Capital Partners LP increased its holdings in Western Digital by 1,926.3% during the second quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $195,882,000 after buying an additional 2,910,062 shares during the period. Polar Capital Holdings Plc purchased a new position in Western Digital during the third quarter valued at approximately $221,800,000. Finally, AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Western Digital by 175.4% in the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,232,071 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $78,347,000 after acquiring an additional 784,645 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Trending Headlines about 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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have weighed in on WDC. Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, May 1st. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $350.00 to $375.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $325.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $335.00 to $500.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $395.83.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Western Digital news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total value of $2,501,349.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 121,682 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $32,643,630.14. This trade represents a 7.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total transaction of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $246,342,096. This represents a 3.24% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. 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.

Western Digital Stock Up 3.5%

Shares of WDC opened at $480.09 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $325.84 and a two-hundred day moving average of $242.16. The company has a market cap of $165.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.90 and a beta of 2.10. Western Digital Corporation has a twelve month low of $43.88 and a twelve month high of $483.87.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.57 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

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

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.