Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Rating Increased to Outperform at Sanford C. Bernstein

Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded shares of Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) from a market perform rating to an outperform rating in a report released on Tuesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. They currently have $340.00 price objective on the data storage provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently commented on WDC. The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Monday, February 9th. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $197.00 to $257.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 20th. Finally, Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $275.75.

Western Digital Stock Performance

WDC opened at $270.49 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $91.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.58 and a beta of 1.76. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $274.30 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $196.78. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. Western Digital has a 12-month low of $28.83 and a 12-month high of $319.62.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The company had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Western Digital will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total transaction of $9,616,638.18. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total value of $2,501,349.48. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 121,682 shares in the company, valued at approximately $32,643,630.14. This represents a 7.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Stance Capital LLC grew its position in Western Digital by 2,134.1% in the fourth quarter. Stance Capital LLC now owns 7,462 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,285,000 after acquiring an additional 7,128 shares during the period. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 20.6% during the fourth quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 56,391 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $9,715,000 after acquiring an additional 9,615 shares during the period. World Investment Advisors lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 145.8% during the fourth quarter. World Investment Advisors now owns 5,950 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,025,000 after acquiring an additional 3,529 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 2.4% in the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 59,679 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $10,281,000 after purchasing an additional 1,409 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pure Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 5.8% in the 4th quarter. Pure Financial Advisors LLC now owns 3,792 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $653,000 after purchasing an additional 209 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Key Headlines Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded WDC to Outperform and doubled its price target (to ~$340), calling the recent sector selloff an overreaction and framing WDC as an attractive entry after the pullback. This upgrade and higher target are driving buy-side interest and price-target-driven flows. Bernstein Upgrade
• Positive Sentiment: Bernstein and other bullish notes argue the recent algorithmic dumping in storage presents a buying opportunity; that narrative is attracting dip-buyers into WDC and peers. Blockonomi
• Positive Sentiment: Operational/market proof points: a vendor (JetStor) announced an 80PB archive deployment using WD Ultrastar drives — a tangible data-center win that supports demand for high-capacity HDDs. JetStor Win
• Neutral Sentiment: Technical/product roadmap: coverage notes highlight WDC’s investment in next-gen HAMR and ePMR drives as a potential longer-term edge for capacity, margins and data-center share — a structural positive but not an immediate price mover. Zacks HAMR/ePMR
• Neutral Sentiment: Longer-term context pieces (10‑year return comparisons) and “buy the dip” commentary are circulating; useful for framing investor sentiment but not new fundamental news. 24/7 Wall St.
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s announcement of TurboQuant and related compression research has renewed concerns that algorithmic advances could reduce near-term demand for raw memory/storage capacity, triggering algorithmic/quant-driven selling across the group. That narrative pressured peers and contributed to recent volatility. TheStreet on TurboQuant
• Negative Sentiment: Sector chill: broader “memory trade” coverage notes and data show the high-momentum memory/storage rally has cooled, which can trigger profit-taking in WDC after a strong run. Investopedia
• Negative Sentiment: Insider selling and large recent institutional rebalancing (documented in market data) are being cited by some commentary as a headwind that could limit near-term upside if selling persists. QuiverQuant analysis

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.