a16z Perennial Management L.P. Acquires Shares of 1,854 Western Digital Corporation $WDC

a16z Perennial Management L.P. purchased a new stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 1,854 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $223,000.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter valued at about $636,000. Canada Post Corp Registered Pension Plan boosted its position in Western Digital by 79.8% in the third quarter. Canada Post Corp Registered Pension Plan now owns 8,789 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,026,000 after purchasing an additional 3,900 shares during the last quarter. Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC grew its stake in Western Digital by 7.7% in the 3rd quarter. Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 3,951 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $474,000 after purchasing an additional 282 shares during the period. Sentry Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $95,000. Finally, Waterloo Capital L.P. bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth $254,000. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Trending Headlines about Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board approved an incremental $4 billion share-repurchase program — a large, explicit capital-return move that supports demand for the stock and signals confidence from the board. Reuters: Western Digital adds $4 billion to buyback plan
• Positive Sentiment: Innovation Day unveiled an AI-focused storage roadmap (claims of up to 8x performance improvements and path to 100TB+ HDDs), reinforcing WDC’s positioning in AI training/data-center storage — supports longer-term demand expectations. PCWorld: WD maps out 8x performance boosts
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst community is upgrading WDC and lifting targets (several notes to Buy/Overweight and new street-high targets), which fuels short-term momentum and buy-side interest. Barchart: New street-high price target
• Positive Sentiment: Recent quarterly results beat estimates (revenue and EPS strength) and reinforce the “memory supercycle” / AI-driven storage demand thesis — supports earnings growth expectations. Zacks: WDC is up 5.85% in one week
• Neutral Sentiment: Sandisk’s dramatic rally (spun out from WDC) is lifting sentiment across the memory/storage complex — helpful for WDC thematically but also highlights increased sector volatility and comparatives. MarketBeat: Sandisk’s Swings Are Getting Bigger
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader policy moves to secure supply chains for critical minerals are supportive over the long run for domestic hardware supply, but they are not an immediate stock catalyst. MarketBeat: Critical minerals policy
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares (~$5.1M) in early February (SEC filing) — an insider sale that can prompt some near-term profit-taking despite his continued large ownership. SEC filing: Insider sale disclosure

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. New Street Research set a $250.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday. UBS Group set a $306.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Mizuho raised their target price on Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Truist Financial set a $310.00 target price on Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, TD Cowen increased their price target on Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $282.58 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $296.50. The stock has a market cap of $95.81 billion, a PE ratio of 28.34, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.68 and a beta of 1.80. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $205.35 and a 200-day moving average of $143.80.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. The business had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The firm’s revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.77 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total transaction of $1,833,922.20. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 136,538 shares in the company, valued at $36,932,163.62. The trade was a 4.73% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total value of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Western Digital 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.