Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Reaches New 52-Week High – Still a Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s share price reached a new 52-week high on Thursday . The company traded as high as $307.50 and last traded at $296.3750, with a volume of 3803248 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $273.74.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WDC has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. New Street Research set a $250.00 price target on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Western Digital has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Trading Up 8.0%

The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $100.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 1.80. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $212.21 and its 200-day simple moving average is $148.64.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $1.77 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Insider Activity

In other Western Digital news, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $272,272.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 3,585 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $552,090. This trade represents a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. The trade was a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last three months, insiders sold 70,522 shares of company stock worth $17,661,708. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in WDC. Vanguard Group Inc. raised 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 valued at $5,196,484,000 after buying an additional 243,177 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 2.0% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $593,045,000 after purchasing an additional 186,030 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter worth about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP increased its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 431,419 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Western Digital during the 4th quarter valued at about $788,729,000. Institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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.