Seven Mile Advisory Purchases New Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Seven Mile Advisory purchased a new stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm purchased 1,556 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $268,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Western Digital by 0.6% in 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 purchasing an additional 243,177 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Western Digital in the 4th quarter worth about $788,729,000. Northern Trust Corp increased its stake in Western Digital by 11.2% during the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,884,000 after buying an additional 384,103 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its stake in Western Digital by 11.8% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 3,804,907 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $456,737,000 after buying an additional 402,981 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Fred Alger Management LLC increased its stake in Western Digital by 4,923.9% during the 3rd quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 3,407,042 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $409,049,000 after buying an additional 3,339,225 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 432 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $545.60, for a total transaction of $235,699.20. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 116,643 shares in the company, valued at $63,640,420.80. The trade was a 0.37% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Bruce E. Kiddoo sold 750 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 28th. The stock was sold at an average price of $528.52, for a total value of $396,390.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 3,903 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,062,813.56. This represents a 16.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 29,322 shares of company stock valued at $12,768,550. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on WDC. Zacks Research upgraded Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Western Digital from $350.00 to $375.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Wall Street Zen upgraded Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 2nd. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price objective on Western Digital from $340.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. Finally, Robert W. Baird boosted their price objective on Western Digital from $310.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, May 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have assigned a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Western Digital presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $450.46.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley reiterated an Overweight rating and lifted its price target to $650, while other firms also turned constructive on Western Digital and the broader hard-drive/storage group. What’s Going On With The Jump In Western Digital Stock?
• Positive Sentiment: Investors are re-rating WDC on expectations that AI and cloud data-center buildouts will keep HDD and storage demand tight, supporting pricing power and margin expansion. Why Western Digital’s stock was the S&P 500’s biggest gainer on Monday
• Positive Sentiment: Recent earnings were stronger than expected, with revenue and EPS beating estimates and management guiding to continued profitability, reinforcing confidence in the turnaround story. Western Digital Corporation Will Hit $600 on This Date
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader market sentiment was also upbeat, with risk appetite improving across AI, chip, and memory stocks, adding a sector tailwind to the move in WDC.

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of Western Digital stock opened at $653.53 on Tuesday. The stock has a market cap of $225.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.02 and a beta of 2.13. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $454.40 and its 200-day simple moving average is $312.52. Western Digital Corporation has a 1-year low of $56.26 and a 1-year high of $658.80.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share 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 analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.36 EPS. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.1%. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. Western Digital’s payout ratio is presently 3.58%.

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.