Barclays Increases Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Price Target to $65.00

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC – Get Rating) had its price target boosted by equities research analysts at Barclays from $60.00 to $65.00 in a note issued to investors on Friday, The Fly reports. Barclays‘s price target suggests a potential upside of 23.55% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on WDC. Susquehanna downgraded shares of Western Digital from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their price objective for the company from $80.00 to $50.00 in a research report on Thursday, April 14th. Cowen reduced their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $70.00 to $60.00 in a research report on Friday, January 28th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reduced their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $70.00 to $63.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 19th. UBS Group dropped their target price on shares of Western Digital from $62.00 to $58.00 in a report on Thursday, February 10th. Finally, Susquehanna Bancshares cut shares of Western Digital from a “positive” rating to a “neutral” rating and dropped their target price for the company from $80.00 to $50.00 in a report on Thursday, April 14th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $70.95.

Shares of NASDAQ:WDC opened at $52.61 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 8.32 and a beta of 1.59. Western Digital has a one year low of $43.85 and a one year high of $78.19. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $49.25 and a 200-day simple moving average of $54.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.93.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC – Get Rating) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 28th. The data storage provider reported $1.65 EPS for the quarter, beating the Zacks’ consensus estimate of $1.49 by $0.16. The firm had revenue of $4.38 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.34 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 10.52% and a return on equity of 20.03%. The firm’s revenue was up 5.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.75 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Western Digital will post 7.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In other Western Digital news, insider Srinivasan Sivaram sold 11,380 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $53.37, for a total value of $607,350.60. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Paula A. Price sold 4,150 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $51.82, for a total transaction of $215,053.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 0.17% of the company’s stock.

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 12.0% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 9,302,622 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $525,040,000 after purchasing an additional 994,582 shares during the last quarter. DNB Asset Management AS boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 15.6% in the 1st quarter. DNB Asset Management AS now owns 7,552,489 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $374,981,000 after purchasing an additional 1,021,132 shares during the last quarter. FIL Ltd boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 13.6% in the 3rd quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 7,417,485 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $418,643,000 after purchasing an additional 889,812 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 5.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 6,308,135 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $410,390,000 after purchasing an additional 343,751 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 2.7% in the 4th quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 6,272,271 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $409,015,000 after purchasing an additional 162,490 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.27% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Company Profile (Get Rating)

Western Digital Corporation develops, manufactures, and sells data storage devices and solutions in the United States, China, Hong Kong, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, rest of Asia, and internationally. It offers client devices, including hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid state drives (SSDs) for computing devices, such as desktop and notebook personal computers (PCs), smart video systems, gaming consoles, and set top boxes; flash-based embedded storage products for mobile phones, tablets, notebook PCs, and other portable and wearable devices, as well as automotive, Internet of Things, industrial, and connected home applications; and flash-based memory wafers.

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