Morgan Stanley Raises Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Price Target to $167.00

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) had its price target lifted by investment analysts at Morgan Stanley from $140.00 to $167.00 in a report released on Monday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “overweight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 12.04% from the company’s previous close.

A number of other brokerages have also recently commented on STX. Wall Street Zen cut Seagate Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, May 30th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on Seagate Technology from $105.00 to $122.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 23rd. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $140.00 price target on shares of Seagate Technology in a research report on Wednesday, May 21st. Mizuho reduced their price target on shares of Seagate Technology from $115.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, April 10th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Seagate Technology from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $100.00 price target for the company in a report on Friday, May 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $128.00.

Seagate Technology Trading Down 0.0%

Shares of STX stock opened at $149.05 on Monday. Seagate Technology has a 1 year low of $63.19 and a 1 year high of $152.16. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $126.27 and its 200-day moving average is $102.20. The firm has a market capitalization of $31.63 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.54 and a beta of 1.45.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.90 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $2.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.14 billion. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 105.02% and a net margin of 17.49%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 30.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.33 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Seagate Technology will post 6.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology announced that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Thursday, May 22nd that allows the company to repurchase $5.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the data storage provider to repurchase up to 21.6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Seagate Technology news, EVP Ban Seng Teh sold 63,418 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $125.00, for a total transaction of $7,927,250.00. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 14,658 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,832,250. This trade represents a 81.23% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO William D. Mosley sold 70,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $109.47, for a total transaction of $7,662,900.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 485,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $53,167,061.19. This represents a 12.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 395,516 shares of company stock valued at $47,831,398. 0.81% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Seagate Technology

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 28,743,126 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,441,729,000 after acquiring an additional 769,009 shares in the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. grew its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 12.9% during the 1st quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 18,920,792 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,607,321,000 after purchasing an additional 2,161,191 shares during the last quarter. Sanders Capital LLC lifted its stake in Seagate Technology by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 16,530,152 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,426,717,000 after purchasing an additional 162,561 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its stake in Seagate Technology by 56.5% in the 4th quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 15,621,162 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,348,262,000 after purchasing an additional 5,640,443 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Seagate Technology by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,295,225 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $370,013,000 after buying an additional 132,713 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology Holdings plc provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and internationally. It provides mass capacity storage products, including enterprise nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise nearline solid state drives (SSDs), enterprise nearline systems, video and image HDDs, and network-attached storage drives.