Simplify Asset Management Inc. Invests $282,000 in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Simplify Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor acquired 1,639 shares of the data storage provider’s stock, valued at approximately $282,000.

Several other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in WDC. Fideuram Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking S.P.A. bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 4th quarter valued at about $433,000. Buckhead Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 4th quarter valued at about $253,000. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in Western Digital by 15.3% in the 4th quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 7,105 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,224,000 after buying an additional 942 shares in the last quarter. Americana Partners LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 4th quarter valued at about $1,540,000. Finally, Evoke Wealth LLC increased its position in Western Digital by 17.4% in the 4th quarter. Evoke Wealth LLC now owns 3,432 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $591,000 after buying an additional 508 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total value of $2,743,105.88. Following the transaction, the insider owned 107,794 shares in the company, valued at $29,137,796.14. The trade was a 8.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares in the company, valued at $246,342,096. The trade was a 3.24% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders sold 53,347 shares of company stock worth $17,974,293. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on WDC. Zacks Research raised Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on Western Digital to $660.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Robert W. Baird boosted their target price on Western Digital from $310.00 to $450.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Monday, May 4th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 target price for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. Finally, Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $500.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Friday, May 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Western Digital has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $395.83.

Western Digital Stock Performance

WDC stock opened at $484.28 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $166.92 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.91 and a beta of 2.10. Western Digital Corporation has a 52-week low of $49.00 and a 52-week high of $525.15. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $377.48 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $271.52.

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, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The business had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.36 EPS. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.57 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.15 per share. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. The ex-dividend date is Friday, June 5th. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 2.99%.

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.