Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Cut to Hold at Zacks Research

Zacks Research cut shares of Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report released on Tuesday,Zacks.com reports.

WDC has been the topic of several other research reports. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $335.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Argus set a $300.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. Twenty-one equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $275.75.

Western Digital Trading Down 0.9%

NASDAQ WDC opened at $294.97 on Tuesday. Western Digital has a 12 month low of $28.83 and a 12 month high of $319.62. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $276.45 and a 200 day simple moving average of $198.17. 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 company has a market capitalization of $100.01 billion, a PE ratio of 29.59, a P/E/G ratio of 0.69 and a beta of 1.77.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $1.77 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Western Digital will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the stock in a transaction 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 sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on 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 owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last three months, insiders sold 92,795 shares of company stock worth $24,265,884. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Western Digital

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Western Digital by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $5,196,484,000 after purchasing an additional 243,177 shares in the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the third quarter valued at about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% during the second quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after buying an additional 431,419 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital during the fourth quarter worth about $788,729,000. Finally, Northern Trust Corp grew its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 11.2% during the third quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,884,000 after buying an additional 384,103 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Bernstein upgraded WDC to Outperform, prompting a sizable intraday rally as investors viewed the pullback as a buying opportunity. Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Raised to “Outperform” at Sanford C. Bernstein
• Positive Sentiment: Other coverage and momentum flows pushed WDC up ~10–11% on Wednesday as traders positioned ahead of earnings, signaling short-term investor optimism. Western Digital (WDC) Jumps 10% Ahead of Earnings
• Positive Sentiment: Industry analysis highlights WDC’s strong positioning in AI/cloud nearline HDDs — reports note high UltraSMR adoption, long-term hyperscaler commitments and sell-outs into 2026–2028, supporting revenue and margin outlooks. There’s A Storage Problem With AI Inference – And Western Digital Knows It
• Positive Sentiment: Real-world demand: a government agency archive deployment using WD Ultrastar drives underscores enterprise/customer wins for high-density storage. JetStor Delivers 80PB High-Density Archive for Government Agency Using WD’s Trusted High-Capacity Ultrastar Drives
• Neutral Sentiment: New product/consumer pricing noise: a promotional sale on a 5TB WD portable drive drew headlines — relevant for consumer demand/ASP monitoring but not a major driver for enterprise HDD momentum. WD 5TB Portable External Hard Drive for Mac Drops to $0.03 per GB Even After Amazon’s Spring Sale
• Neutral Sentiment: ETF product news: Roundhill launched a Memory ETF (DRAM) — increases thematic flow options into memory/storage names, which could help bid the group but is not a direct WDC catalyst. Roundhill Investments Launches First-Ever Memory ETF (DRAM)
• Negative Sentiment: Macro headwinds: broader market weakness (inflation and rate worries) pressured futures and tech names today, contributing to WDC’s pullback. US Stock Market Today S&P 500 Futures Fall As Inflation And Rate Worries Persist
• Negative Sentiment: Analyst downgrade: Zacks cut WDC from “strong-buy” to “hold,” adding selling pressure after recent gains. Zacks Research Downgrade
• Negative Sentiment: Intraday pullback & volatility: coverage tracking WDC notes a ~3% intraday pullback as traders take profits following the recent spike. What’s Going On With Western Digital Stock Thursday?

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.