Waldron Private Wealth LLC Invests $770,000 in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Waldron Private Wealth LLC acquired a new stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 4,467 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $770,000.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in Western Digital by 0.6% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,196,484,000 after buying an additional 243,177 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% during the 2nd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $354,247,000 after acquiring an additional 431,419 shares during the last quarter. Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $456,884,000 after acquiring an additional 384,103 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 11.8% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,804,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,737,000 after acquiring an additional 402,981 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $230.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, January 16th. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Monday, February 9th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $265.58.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total transaction of $9,616,638.18. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated 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 $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. Insiders sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Cloud growth and margin upside highlighted as a key thesis for WDC’s next leg of revenue and margin expansion. Western Digital: Cloud Key Driver To Growth And Margins
• Positive Sentiment: Technical market action: a recent trading signal coincided with a rebound in WDC shares, supporting near-term momentum. Western Digital Shares Rebound, Climb 3% After Key Trading Signal
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst comparisons favor WDC over peers like NetApp on AI-driven storage demand and cash returns, reinforcing buy-case narratives. Western Digital vs. NetApp: Which Data Storage Stock is the Better Buy?
• Positive Sentiment: WD is part of an open-source quantum error correction collaboration (OQD + QuScript), signaling R&D breadth that may support longer-term enterprise opportunities. OQD Launches Open-Source Collaboration with WD and QuScript to Advance Quantum Error Correction
• Neutral Sentiment: Retail promotions and deep discounts on WD-branded SSDs/HDDs (Amazon/Best Buy sales) could boost volume but also reflect aggressive consumer pricing. Upgrade your NAS storage with this WD 2TB SSD – now $240 off during Amazon’s Spring Sale
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s new TurboQuant algorithm has raised investor concerns that AI models could require materially less memory, potentially reducing hardware demand long-term. Google Just Unveiled TurboQuant: Should You Sell Sandisk Stock Now?
• Negative Sentiment: Sector reaction and a Micron selloff reflect investor skepticism about how sustainable AI-driven memory demand will be if efficiency improvements proliferate. Micron Drop Raises A Bigger AI Question
• Negative Sentiment: Broader market and interest-rate concerns are pressuring computer and memory stocks generally, tempering upside for WDC despite company-level positives. SNDK, WDC and STX Forecasts – Computer Companies Fall with Everything Else

Western Digital Stock Performance

NASDAQ WDC opened at $275.34 on Monday. Western Digital Corporation has a one year low of $28.83 and a one year high of $319.62. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $272.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $194.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $93.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.62, a PEG ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.75.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The company 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 firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. Western Digital’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th were given a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is 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.