US Bancorp DE Boosts Stake in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

US Bancorp DE grew its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 29.5% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 94,749 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 21,572 shares during the quarter. US Bancorp DE’s holdings in Western Digital were worth $11,376,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the stock. ORG Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% during the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 117 shares during the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the 2nd quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 407 shares in the last quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 86.9% during the 2nd quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 441 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% during the third quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 204 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Grove Bank & Trust purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter worth about $30,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently issued reports on WDC shares. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $340.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Wall Street Zen cut Western Digital from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, February 21st. Robert W. Baird set a $310.00 target price on Western Digital in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price target on Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In related news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 214 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.11, for a total transaction of $61,227.54. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 133,781 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $38,276,081.91. This represents a 0.16% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total value of $5,108,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 623,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $159,288,807.84. This represents a 3.11% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 67,606 shares of company stock valued at $17,296,369 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Price Performance

WDC stock opened at $279.70 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $94.83 billion, a PE ratio of 28.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.65 and a beta of 1.80. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $238.58 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $166.19. Western Digital Corporation has a 12-month low of $28.83 and a 12-month high of $309.90.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The company had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same period last year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

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.