4,445 Shares in Western Digital Corporation $WDC Purchased by Johnson Investment Counsel Inc.

Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. purchased a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund purchased 4,445 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $534,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. ORG Partners LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% in the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. grew its stake in 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 acquiring an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Grove Bank & Trust bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at $30,000. Westfuller Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the 3rd quarter worth $30,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 207.0% during the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 178 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total value of $9,616,638.18. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total value of $272,272.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 3,585 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $552,090. This represents a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708 in the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on WDC. Mizuho lifted their target price on Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Truist Financial set a $310.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Barclays upped their price objective on Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Benchmark boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of Western Digital stock opened at $284.10 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $96.32 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $214.67 and a 200-day moving average price of $149.58. Western Digital Corporation has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $307.50.

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

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

About Western Digital

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.