Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Trading Down 3% – Time to Sell?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s share price traded down 3% on Friday . The company traded as low as $442.78 and last traded at $447.18. 4,964,309 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 42% from the average daily volume of 8,604,285 shares. The stock had previously closed at $460.93.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Bullish analyst view remains intact: Citi reaffirmed a Buy rating and raised its price target to $740, citing AI-driven storage demand that is outpacing supply. Recent analyst targets include a median of $597.50, with several targets ranging from $650 to $900. Western Digital Buy Rating Reaffirmed
• Positive Sentiment: Fundamental support: Western Digital’s latest reported quarter showed 43.8% year-over-year revenue growth, earnings above consensus and first-quarter fiscal 2027 guidance of $3.85–$4.15 per share. Bullish commentary argues that the recent correction removed speculative excess without undermining the company’s longer-term compounding potential. Western Digital The Correction Priced Out The Froth
• Neutral Sentiment: Short-interest data provides little signal: Reported short interest was zero shares, with a zero-day days-to-cover ratio, suggesting the data may be incomplete or unreliable rather than indicating meaningful short positioning.
• Negative Sentiment: DeepSeek-driven AI concerns pressured the sector: An apparent breakthrough in AI efficiency raised questions about how much computing and storage infrastructure future AI systems may require, contributing to a selloff across storage and semiconductor equities. Western Digital Stock Slips Friday
• Negative Sentiment: Macro and trading pressures added to the decline: Rising Treasury yields and higher oil prices hurt high-growth technology shares, while weakness in Micron and Seagate highlighted a broad memory and storage selloff. Recent insider filings also show substantial selling and no reported insider purchases, creating an additional near-term overhang. Western Digital Falls as Storage Stocks Slide

Analysts Set New Price Targets

WDC has been the topic of several research reports. Citigroup reduced their price objective on Western Digital from $800.00 to $740.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, August 7th. Wall Street Zen cut Western Digital from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Sunday, August 16th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Western Digital from $575.00 to $730.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, July 10th. UBS Group cut their price target on Western Digital from $560.00 to $525.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings cut Western Digital from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a report on Wednesday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, seventeen have assigned a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $534.56.

Western Digital Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $154.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.47, a PEG ratio of 2.05 and a beta of 2.13. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $495.23 and its 200-day simple moving average is $452.06.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, August 5th. The data storage provider reported $3.56 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.31 by $0.25. The company had revenue of $3.75 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.70 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 72.95% and a return on equity of 48.15%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 43.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.66 EPS. Western Digital has set its Q1 2027 guidance at 3.850-4.150 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 19.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 17th. Investors of record on Tuesday, September 8th will be paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Tuesday, September 8th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is 2.48%.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $444.97, for a total value of $8,899,400.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 575,966 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $256,287,591.02. This represents a 3.36% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Cynthia Tregillis sold 432 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $451.20, for a total value of $194,918.40. Following the transaction, the insider owned 111,030 shares in the company, valued at approximately $50,096,736. This trade represents a 0.39% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 25,437 shares of company stock worth $11,461,345. 0.18% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Rakuten Securities Inc. increased its stake in Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares in the last quarter. Mowery & Schoenfeld Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the second quarter worth $28,000. Dunhill Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at $29,000. Stonehage Fleming Financial Services Holdings Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at $31,000. Finally, Valley Wealth Managers Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 1st quarter valued at $32,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Company Profile

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) develops, manufactures and sells data storage products and solutions for data centers, cloud service providers, enterprises, businesses and consumers. Its portfolio is centered on hard disk drives (HDDs), including high-capacity enterprise drives used in cloud and data center environments, as well as products for network-attached storage, surveillance and personal computing.

The company markets products under brands including Western Digital, WD, WD_BLACK and Ultrastar.