Western Digital Corporation $WDC Shares Sold by American Century Companies Inc.

American Century Companies Inc. lowered its position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 56.3% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 167,833 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 216,409 shares during the period. American Century Companies Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $20,150,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. WCM Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Western Digital in the third quarter valued at $791,317,000. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter worth $220,680,000. Soroban Capital Partners LP boosted its position in shares of Western Digital by 1,926.3% in the 2nd quarter. Soroban Capital Partners LP now owns 3,061,134 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $195,882,000 after buying an additional 2,910,062 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its stake in Western Digital by 175.4% in the 2nd quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,232,071 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $78,347,000 after acquiring an additional 784,645 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Trivest Advisors Ltd grew its stake in Western Digital by 463.4% in the 3rd quarter. Trivest Advisors Ltd now owns 920,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $110,455,000 after acquiring an additional 756,700 shares during the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have issued reports on WDC. Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. China Renaissance assumed coverage on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective for the company. Bank of America lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $230.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, January 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Up 6.9%

WDC stock opened at $262.06 on Tuesday. Western Digital Corporation has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $309.90. The stock has a market capitalization of $88.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.28, a PEG ratio of 0.56 and a beta of 1.75. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $248.03 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $174.53. 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 (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The business had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.77 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total value of $9,616,638.18. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total value of $2,743,105.88. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 107,794 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $29,137,796.14. This represents a 8.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last quarter, insiders sold 84,277 shares of company stock valued at $22,091,068. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

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.