iA Global Asset Management Inc. Purchases Shares of 48,942 Western Digital Corporation $WDC

iA Global Asset Management Inc. acquired a new stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor acquired 48,942 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $5,876,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $220,680,000. Soroban Capital Partners LP lifted its stake in Western Digital by 1,926.3% during the 2nd quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $195,882,000 after acquiring an additional 2,910,062 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 175.4% in the 2nd 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 during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 338.3% in the second quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 936,313 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $59,915,000 after acquiring an additional 722,702 shares during the period. Finally, Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 17.1% during the second quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. now owns 3,735,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $239,022,000 after purchasing an additional 545,500 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In related news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total value of $277,956.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 3,863 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $596,524.46. The trade was a 31.79% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $272,272.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 3,585 shares in the company, valued at approximately $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 26,816 shares of company stock worth $4,116,148 in the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Trending Headlines about Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Multiple analyst upgrades and sizable price‑target increases (Citigroup, Rosenblatt, Bank of America and others) have lifted sentiment and supported the rally into record highs. Forget the Chips, Buy Memory
• Positive Sentiment: AI-driven demand is rotating investor money from GPUs to storage — institutional flow into NAND/SSD and HDD suppliers is increasing pricing power and revenue visibility for WDC’s data‑center HDDs and SSD roadmap. AI-money moving to storage
• Positive Sentiment: WDC has strong recent earnings‑surprise history and Wall Street expects continued earnings growth; that raises the chance of another beat at the upcoming quarterly report. Will WDC beat estimates?
• Neutral Sentiment: Corporate cadence: WDC is hosting an Innovation Day and has raised its dividend — both can reinforce the narrative but are event‑driven and dependent on execution/communication. Innovation Day / dividend context
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity: a small officer sale (447 shares) was disclosed; size and frequency indicate routine liquidity rather than management signaling. SEC filing
• Negative Sentiment: Price pullback today amid broader market strength — traders appear to be taking profits after WDC hit fresh 52‑week/all‑time highs. WDC stock dips while market gains
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and cycle risk concerns: several commentators warn the rally could be stretched and exposed to a pullback if supply/pricing dynamics normalize or AI demand growth slows. Pullback risk analysis

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of Western Digital stock opened at $236.39 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42. Western Digital Corporation has a twelve month low of $28.83 and a twelve month high of $247.94. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $182.54 and a 200 day moving average price of $129.85. The firm has a market cap of $80.82 billion, a PE ratio of 34.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.17 and a beta of 1.78.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.57 by $0.21. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.The company had revenue of $2.82 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.72 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $1.78 earnings per share. Western Digital’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.4% on a year-over-year basis. Western Digital has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-2.030 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 4th were paid a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 4th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is 7.28%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have commented on WDC shares. Wedbush upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $90.00 to $135.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, October 16th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Western Digital from $200.00 to $280.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. UBS Group upped their target price on Western Digital from $145.00 to $230.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $240.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Thursday, January 15th. Finally, China Renaissance started coverage on Western Digital in a report on Friday, December 5th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price target for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $206.29.

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.