Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Insider Cynthia Tregillis Sells 214 Shares

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) insider Cynthia Tregillis sold 214 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $286.11, for a total transaction of $61,227.54. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 133,781 shares in the company, valued at approximately $38,276,081.91. The trade was a 0.16% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link.

Western Digital Stock Down 0.9%

WDC opened at $279.70 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $94.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.05, a PEG ratio of 0.65 and a beta of 1.80. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $238.58 and a 200-day moving average price of $165.56. Western Digital Corporation has a twelve month low of $28.83 and a twelve month high of $309.90. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its earnings results 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. The business had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The firm’s revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.77 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

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

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of WDC. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in 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 worth $5,196,484,000 after buying an additional 243,177 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 2.0% in the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $593,045,000 after acquiring an additional 186,030 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the third quarter worth about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP raised its stake in Western Digital by 8.5% during the 2nd quarter. Holocene Advisors LP now owns 5,535,972 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $354,247,000 after purchasing an additional 431,419 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in Western Digital in the 4th quarter worth approximately $788,729,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on WDC shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, October 31st. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Western Digital from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a research report on Monday, February 2nd. Argus set a $300.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Benchmark lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $115.00 to $163.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $340.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Wednesday, February 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $265.58.

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.