QRG Capital Management Inc. Increases Stock Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 375.1% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 21,212 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 16,747 shares during the period. QRG Capital Management Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $2,547,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. ORG Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% during the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 117 shares in the last quarter. Private Wealth Management Group LLC increased its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 102.5% in the 2nd quarter. Private Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 399 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 202 shares during the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its stake in Western Digital by 4,070.0% during the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the last quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 86.9% in the second quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 441 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Grove Bank & Trust acquired a new stake in Western Digital during the third quarter worth approximately $30,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total value of $272,272.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 3,585 shares in the company, valued at approximately $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.69, for a total transaction of $3,013,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 645,467 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $97,265,422.23. This represents a 3.01% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders sold 26,369 shares of company stock worth $4,013,785. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages have recently commented on WDC. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Western Digital in a report on Monday, December 29th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $228.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $165.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 9th. TD Cowen increased their target price on shares of Western Digital from $90.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Benchmark raised their price target on Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $189.05.

Western Digital Trading Down 0.3%

Shares of WDC stock opened at $221.51 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42, a current ratio of 1.21 and a quick ratio of 0.94. The firm has a market cap of $75.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 32.24, a PEG ratio of 1.37 and a beta of 1.78. Western Digital Corporation has a 1-year low of $28.83 and a 1-year high of $230.48. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $176.67 and its 200-day simple moving average is $125.95.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.57 by $0.21. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.The business had revenue of $2.82 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.72 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.78 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.4% on a year-over-year basis. Western Digital has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-2.030 EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared 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 is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, December 4th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. 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.