Kathmere Capital Management LLC Raises Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Kathmere Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 160.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 4,970 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,059 shares during the quarter. Kathmere Capital Management LLC’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $856,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Western Digital by 0.6% in the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,196,484,000 after acquiring an additional 243,177 shares during the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 8.5% in the 2nd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $354,247,000 after purchasing an additional 431,419 shares during the period. Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 11.2% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,884,000 after purchasing an additional 384,103 shares during the period. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Western Digital by 11.8% in the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,804,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $456,737,000 after purchasing an additional 402,981 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors 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: Cloud growth and margin upside highlighted as a key thesis for WDC’s next leg of revenue and margin expansion. Western Digital: Cloud Key Driver To Growth And Margins
• Positive Sentiment: Technical market action: a recent trading signal coincided with a rebound in WDC shares, supporting near-term momentum. Western Digital Shares Rebound, Climb 3% After Key Trading Signal
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst comparisons favor WDC over peers like NetApp on AI-driven storage demand and cash returns, reinforcing buy-case narratives. Western Digital vs. NetApp: Which Data Storage Stock is the Better Buy?
• Positive Sentiment: WD is part of an open-source quantum error correction collaboration (OQD + QuScript), signaling R&D breadth that may support longer-term enterprise opportunities. OQD Launches Open-Source Collaboration with WD and QuScript to Advance Quantum Error Correction
• Neutral Sentiment: Retail promotions and deep discounts on WD-branded SSDs/HDDs (Amazon/Best Buy sales) could boost volume but also reflect aggressive consumer pricing. Upgrade your NAS storage with this WD 2TB SSD – now $240 off during Amazon’s Spring Sale
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s new TurboQuant algorithm has raised investor concerns that AI models could require materially less memory, potentially reducing hardware demand long-term. Google Just Unveiled TurboQuant: Should You Sell Sandisk Stock Now?
• Negative Sentiment: Sector reaction and a Micron selloff reflect investor skepticism about how sustainable AI-driven memory demand will be if efficiency improvements proliferate. Micron Drop Raises A Bigger AI Question
• Negative Sentiment: Broader market and interest-rate concerns are pressuring computer and memory stocks generally, tempering upside for WDC despite company-level positives. SNDK, WDC and STX Forecasts – Computer Companies Fall with Everything Else

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on the company. Weiss Ratings raised Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Truist Financial set a $310.00 price objective on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Monday, February 2nd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Trading Up 0.7%

NASDAQ:WDC opened at $275.34 on Friday. Western Digital Corporation has a 1 year low of $28.83 and a 1 year high of $319.62. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $272.75 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $193.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.19. The company has a market cap of $93.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.62, a P/E/G ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.76.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings results 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. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.77 earnings per share. As a group, analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the business’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 transaction of $9,616,638.18. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’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 sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares in the company, valued at $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

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.