AE Wealth Management LLC Takes $316,000 Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

AE Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) during the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm bought 2,633 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $316,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also bought and sold shares of the company. Pure Financial Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 3.1% during the third quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 3,583 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $430,000 after buying an additional 107 shares during the period. Bogart Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 57.7% in the third quarter. Bogart Wealth LLC now owns 309 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $37,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares in the last quarter. Dynamic Advisor Solutions LLC increased its position in Western Digital by 3.0% during the 3rd quarter. Dynamic Advisor Solutions LLC now owns 3,871 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $465,000 after purchasing an additional 114 shares during the period. ORG Partners LLC raised its holdings in Western Digital by 124.5% in the 3rd 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. Finally, Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 4.2% in the 3rd quarter. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB now owns 2,993 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $359,000 after purchasing an additional 120 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Bank of America upped their target price on Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, January 20th. UBS Group set a $306.00 target price on Western Digital in a research report on Friday, January 30th. New Street Research set a $250.00 price target on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, China Renaissance began coverage on Western Digital in a report on Friday, December 5th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective for the company. One investment 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.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $265.58.

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

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the firm’s 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 sale, the director owned 3,863 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $596,524.46. This trade represents a 31.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital 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 directly owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 70,522 shares of company stock valued at $17,661,708. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Stock Up 8.6%

Shares of NASDAQ:WDC opened at $282.58 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $205.35 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $143.80. Western Digital Corporation has a 12-month low of $28.83 and a 12-month high of $296.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $95.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.34, a PEG ratio of 0.68 and a beta of 1.80.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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. The firm 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 company’s revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $1.77 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

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

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.