Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. Cuts Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. lowered its position in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 34.6% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 118,245 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 62,494 shares during the period. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc.’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $31,984,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in WDC. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. grew its holdings in Western Digital by 7.7% during the 1st quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,698,000 after acquiring an additional 3,019 shares in the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. increased its position in Western Digital by 229.7% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after purchasing an additional 967 shares during the period. Sivia Capital Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at about $307,000. Cresset Asset Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at about $292,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 55.3% in the 2nd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,374 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $152,000 after purchasing an additional 845 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on WDC shares. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. TD Cowen boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $325.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Weiss Ratings lowered Western Digital from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Friday, June 26th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price target on Western Digital from $660.00 to $900.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Monday. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and four have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $493.52.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total value of $8,236,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $246,342,096. This trade represents a 3.24% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 432 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $545.60, for a total value of $235,699.20. Following the sale, the insider owned 116,643 shares in the company, valued at $63,640,420.80. The trade was a 0.37% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 29,322 shares of company stock valued at $12,768,550 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Stock Down 6.3%

NASDAQ:WDC opened at $598.37 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $206.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 35.72 and a beta of 2.10. Western Digital Corporation has a 52 week low of $63.01 and a 52 week high of $799.87. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $533.61 and a 200 day moving average of $355.37.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $2.39 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Investors of record on Friday, June 5th were paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.12. The ex-dividend date was Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.1%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 3.58%.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Bank of America raised its price target on Western Digital to $732 from $610 and kept a buy rating, implying meaningful upside from current levels. Benzinga
• Positive Sentiment: Melius Research upgraded Western Digital to strong-buy, reinforcing the bullish analyst view on the stock. Zacks.com
• Positive Sentiment: An analyst fair value estimate was reset higher to $584.79 from $518.26 as models were updated for AI storage demand, HDD pricing, and Western Digital’s product roadmap. Yahoo Finance
• Neutral Sentiment: The stock’s move is also part of a broader memory-sector pullback, with Micron and SanDisk also declining as the Nasdaq weakens. 247WallSt

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.