B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. Invests $356,000 in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 2,964 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $356,000.

A number of other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. SYM FINANCIAL Corp purchased a new position in Western Digital during the second quarter worth $225,000. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in shares of 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 valued at $1,938,000 after acquiring an additional 2,656 shares during the period. LBP AM SA bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 3rd quarter worth about $641,000. Greenleaf Trust purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth about $233,000. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in Western Digital by 7.1% during the 2nd 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 last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

Here are the key news stories impacting Western Digital this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Q2 beat: WDC reported $2.13 EPS and $3.02B revenue, topping consensus estimates and showing a meaningful year‑over‑year improvement in profit margins. This is the primary driver behind investor optimism. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Upbeat guidance: Management forecast Q3 revenue above Street estimates, citing sustained demand for HDDs and flash storage from AI servers — reinforcing the view that AI-driven data center demand is driving growth. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Sector tailwind: Strong results from peer Seagate helped lift WDC ahead of its report as investors priced in continued strength across storage names. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Financial detail & investor materials: The company posted a $1.84B profit and provided a press release, slide deck and conference call — useful for modeling forward margins and capacity plans but not market-moving by itself. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst revisions: Several analysts revised forecasts higher into the print, which supports the bullish thesis but also means expectations are elevated. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Profit-taking and overbought technicals: WDC had run to record highs ahead of earnings, prompting take‑profits and triggering “overbought” warnings that can pressure shares short‑term. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Market commentary caution: Media/TV commentators have advised against “chasing” high‑momentum memory/storage names, which can amplify short-term selling after big moves. Read More.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. Citigroup raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, January 20th. Benchmark raised their price target on Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and set a $240.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Thursday, January 15th. China Renaissance assumed coverage on Western Digital in a research note on Friday, December 5th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $193.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Western Digital to $260.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 22nd. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $207.48.

Western Digital Trading Down 0.5%

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $278.41 on Friday. Western Digital Corporation has a twelve month low of $28.83 and a twelve month high of $285.42. The firm has a market cap of $95.19 billion, a PE ratio of 40.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.33 and a beta of 1.78. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $191.38 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $135.34. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.77 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the 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 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 this link. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 447 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $229.00, for a total value of $102,363.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 143,318 shares in the company, valued at $32,819,822. This trade represents a 0.31% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold a total of 26,816 shares of company stock worth $4,116,148 over the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Western Digital Company Profile

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.