Western Digital Corporation $WDC Shares Sold by Deprince Race & Zollo Inc.

Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. trimmed its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 51.6% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 263,102 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 280,141 shares during the period. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. owned 0.08% of Western Digital worth $31,588,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. SYM FINANCIAL Corp purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $225,000. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its position in Western Digital by 9.6% in the second quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 30,434 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,938,000 after acquiring an additional 2,656 shares during the period. Parsifal Capital Management LP increased its stake in Western Digital by 32.0% during the first quarter. Parsifal Capital Management LP now owns 897,574 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $36,289,000 after acquiring an additional 217,574 shares during the last quarter. Greenleaf Trust purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the second quarter valued at $233,000. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. raised its position in Western Digital by 7.1% in the second quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 118,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $7,594,000 after purchasing an additional 7,913 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently issued reports on WDC shares. Loop Capital raised their price objective on Western Digital to $250.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Western Digital from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Robert W. Baird set a $180.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $125.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Bank of America increased their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $170.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $173.65.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $150.69, for a total value of $3,013,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 645,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $97,265,422.23. This trade represents a 3.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total transaction of $277,956.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 3,863 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $596,524.46. This represents a 31.79% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 26,369 shares of company stock worth $4,013,785 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Trading Up 1.1%

Shares of WDC stock opened at $181.54 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a current ratio of 1.21. The stock has a market capitalization of $62.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.82. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $158.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $109.98. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $188.77.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its earnings results on Monday, April 7th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter. The company had revenue of $4.10 billion for the quarter. Western Digital had a net margin of 21.37% and a return on equity of 30.89%. Equities research analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, December 4th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 4th. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 7.28%.

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.