Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock Rating Lowered by Wall Street Zen

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) was downgraded by equities researchers at Wall Street Zen from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a note issued to investors on Saturday.

Several other analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. Truist Financial set a $310.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Citigroup upped their price objective on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. China Renaissance started coverage on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, December 5th. They set a “buy” rating and a $193.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Monday, February 9th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Western Digital Stock Performance

NASDAQ WDC opened at $285.52 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $227.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $158.41. Western Digital has a fifty-two week low of $28.83 and a fifty-two week high of $309.90. The company has a market cap of $96.80 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.64, a P/E/G ratio of 0.66 and a beta of 1.80. 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 posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 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 analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. Western Digital’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Western Digital will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was 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 in the company, valued at approximately $596,524.46. This represents a 31.79% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 6,780 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.49, for a total value of $1,833,922.20. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 136,538 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,932,163.62. This trade represents a 4.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock valued at $17,661,708. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. SYM FINANCIAL Corp acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at $225,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 12.3% in the third quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 52,317 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $6,281,000 after acquiring an additional 5,731 shares during the period. LBP AM SA purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth about $641,000. Moloney Securities Asset Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at about $636,000. Finally, Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 7.1% in the 2nd quarter. Resona Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 118,888 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $7,594,000 after purchasing an additional 7,913 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Western Digital

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.