Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) CEO Irving Tan Sells 20,000 Shares

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of WDC traded down $20.83 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $269.41. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 14,747,385 shares, compared to its average volume of 10,951,565. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $198.69 and a 200 day simple moving average of $140.59. The firm has a market capitalization of $91.34 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.02, a P/E/G ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Western Digital Corporation has a 1-year low of $28.83 and a 1-year high of $296.50.

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

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be given 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 payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. New Street Research set a $250.00 price objective on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday. Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price objective on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Mizuho lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $262.25.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Western Digital

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 7.7% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,698,000 after acquiring an additional 3,019 shares in the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after acquiring an additional 967 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in Western Digital in the second quarter worth $307,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 2.6% in the 2nd quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 46,586 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,981,000 after buying an additional 1,191 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ameritas Advisory Services LLC acquired a new position in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $83,000. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board authorizes an additional $4 billion share‑repurchase program, signaling management thinks the stock remains undervalued and returning cash to shareholders; this buyback has been a near‑term price support driver. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Company unveiled an AI‑focused storage roadmap (including a path to 100TB+ HDDs and UltraSMR adoption) at Innovation Day — this reinforces WDC’s positioning as a supplier of high‑capacity data‑lake drives for AI workloads. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts are raising targets and recommen­dations (Mizuho and Rosenblatt among those updating coverage to an outperform/buy with ~$340 targets), supporting upside expectations and institutional interest. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Recent earnings and forward estimate revisions are improving — analysts note stronger-than-expected results and upward EPS revisions, which underpin near‑term upside potential. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Macro theme: the “memory supercycle”/AI infrastructure rotation is boosting both high‑speed flash (spun‑out SanDisk) and high‑capacity HDD demand — a structural tailwind for WDC’s data‑center HDD business. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: U.S. policy efforts to diversify critical‑minerals supply chains could help long‑term hardware supply security but effects are multi‑year and indirect for WDC. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Short‑term risk: profit‑taking and volatility after a strong run (and spillover from Sandisk’s wild intraday swings) can pressure WDC even when fundamentals are constructive; elevated trading volume suggests some traders are locking gains. Article Title

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.