Western Digital Corporation (WDC) To Go Ex-Dividend on September 8th

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, August 5th. Shareholders of record on Tuesday, September 8th will be paid a dividend of 0.15 per share by the data storage provider on Thursday, September 17th. This represents a c) dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. The ex-dividend date is Tuesday, September 8th.

Western Digital has increased its dividend by an average of 0.6%per year over the last three years. Western Digital has a payout ratio of 11.0% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Western Digital to earn $42.61 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 1.4%.

Western Digital Stock Performance

Western Digital stock opened at $451.52 on Friday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $567.55 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $417.23. The company has a market cap of $155.63 billion, a PE ratio of 18.65 and a beta of 2.14. Western Digital has a fifty-two week low of $73.14 and a fifty-two week high of $799.87.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 4th. The data storage provider reported $3.56 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $3.31 by $0.25. Western Digital had a return on equity of 50.22% and a net margin of 72.95%.The business had revenue of $3.75 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.70 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.66 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 43.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts predict that Western Digital will post 17.77 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 808 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, July 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $529.63, for a total transaction of $427,941.04. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 114,539 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $60,663,290.57. This represents a 0.70% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Bruce E. Kiddoo sold 750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $528.52, for a total value of $396,390.00. Following the sale, the director owned 3,903 shares in the company, valued at $2,062,813.56. This trade represents a 16.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 5,093 shares of company stock valued at $2,751,337. Corporate insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of WDC. Rakuten Securities Inc. grew its stake 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 acquiring an additional 407 shares during the period. Avion Wealth raised its position in Western Digital by 163.8% during the fourth quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares during the period. Valley Wealth Managers Inc. purchased a new position in Western Digital during the first quarter valued at $32,000. Swiss RE Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the fourth quarter valued at about $32,000. Finally, BOKF NA grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 6,700.0% in the third quarter. BOKF NA now owns 272 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 268 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.