Candriam S.C.A. Purchases 315,207 Shares of Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Candriam S.C.A. increased its position in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 1,019.0% in the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 346,141 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 315,207 shares during the period. Candriam S.C.A. owned approximately 0.10% of Western Digital worth $41,558,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 7.7% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,698,000 after buying an additional 3,019 shares in the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. raised its stake in Western Digital by 229.7% in the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $56,000 after purchasing an additional 967 shares in the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at about $307,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $286,000. Finally, Prime Capital Investment Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the second quarter worth approximately $235,000. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total transaction of $9,616,638.18. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock valued at $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Western Digital News Roundup

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the company. Wedbush boosted their price target on Western Digital from $260.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Bank of America upped their target price on Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Mizuho raised their price target on Western Digital to $340.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. TD Cowen increased their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Up 8.6%

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $282.58 on Monday. The company has a market cap of $95.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.34, a PEG ratio of 0.73 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Western Digital Corporation has a 12 month low of $28.83 and a 12 month high of $296.50. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $205.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $144.87.

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

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 5.02%.

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.