Pacer Advisors Inc. Decreases Stock Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Pacer Advisors Inc. lessened its stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 95.3% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 65,332 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 1,315,168 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $7,844,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of WDC. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Western Digital by 2.0% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $593,045,000 after purchasing an additional 186,030 shares during the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% in the second quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after buying an additional 431,419 shares during the period. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. raised its holdings in Western Digital by 130.0% during the 1st quarter. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. now owns 5,029,359 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $203,337,000 after buying an additional 2,842,822 shares during the last quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. boosted its position in Western Digital by 17.1% during the 2nd quarter. Maple Rock Capital Partners Inc. now owns 3,735,296 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $239,022,000 after buying an additional 545,500 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 2nd quarter worth $220,680,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on WDC. China Renaissance started coverage on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective for the company. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Monday, December 22nd. Bank of America increased their price objective on Western Digital from $170.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Susquehanna reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $135.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Thursday, November 6th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $173.65.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total transaction of $277,956.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 3,863 shares in the company, valued at approximately $596,524.46. This trade represents a 31.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.69, for a total value of $3,013,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 645,467 shares in the company, valued at $97,265,422.23. The trade was a 3.01% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 26,369 shares of company stock valued at $4,013,785. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Stock Up 1.1%

Shares of NASDAQ:WDC opened at $181.54 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $62.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.43, a P/E/G ratio of 1.12 and a beta of 1.82. 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 50 day moving average price of $158.30 and a 200-day moving average price of $110.36. Western Digital Corporation has a 52-week low of $28.83 and a 52-week high of $188.77.

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

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 4th were given a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 4th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.3%. This is a boost from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Western Digital’s payout ratio is currently 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.