Rheos Capital Works Inc. Reduces Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Rheos Capital Works Inc. cut its position in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 35.0% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 130,000 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 70,000 shares during the period. Western Digital makes up 1.4% of Rheos Capital Works Inc.’s portfolio, making the stock its 24th largest holding. Rheos Capital Works Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $22,395,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. ORG Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% during the 3rd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 117 shares during the period. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% during the 3rd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 204 shares during the period. Grove Bank & Trust purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Westfuller Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth about $30,000. Finally, Cornerstone Planning Group LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 207.0% during the 3rd quarter. Cornerstone Planning Group LLC now owns 264 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $32,000 after purchasing an additional 178 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Western Digital Price Performance

Western Digital stock opened at $304.15 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $103.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.68 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19. Western Digital Corporation has a 1 year low of $28.83 and a 1 year high of $319.62. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $278.89 and a two-hundred day moving average of $202.28.

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, 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 company had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.77 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

WDC has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Truist Financial set a $310.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Barclays boosted 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. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Twenty-one research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Western Digital has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $278.83.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total value of $9,616,638.18. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 8,518 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.32, for a total transaction of $2,174,815.76. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 99,276 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $25,347,148.32. The trade was a 7.90% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock worth $24,265,884 over the last quarter. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Western Digital 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.