Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Trading Down 7.2% – Should You Sell?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s stock price dropped 7.2% during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $254.33 and last traded at $269.41. Approximately 14,653,804 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 34% from the average daily volume of 10,947,632 shares. The stock had previously closed at $290.24.

Western Digital News Summary

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board authorizes an additional $4 billion share‑repurchase program, signaling management thinks the stock remains undervalued and returning cash to shareholders; this buyback has been a near‑term price support driver. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Company unveiled an AI‑focused storage roadmap (including a path to 100TB+ HDDs and UltraSMR adoption) at Innovation Day — this reinforces WDC’s positioning as a supplier of high‑capacity data‑lake drives for AI workloads. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts are raising targets and recommen­dations (Mizuho and Rosenblatt among those updating coverage to an outperform/buy with ~$340 targets), supporting upside expectations and institutional interest. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Recent earnings and forward estimate revisions are improving — analysts note stronger-than-expected results and upward EPS revisions, which underpin near‑term upside potential. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Macro theme: the “memory supercycle”/AI infrastructure rotation is boosting both high‑speed flash (spun‑out SanDisk) and high‑capacity HDD demand — a structural tailwind for WDC’s data‑center HDD business. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: U.S. policy efforts to diversify critical‑minerals supply chains could help long‑term hardware supply security but effects are multi‑year and indirect for WDC. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: Short‑term risk: profit‑taking and volatility after a strong run (and spillover from Sandisk’s wild intraday swings) can pressure WDC even when fundamentals are constructive; elevated trading volume suggests some traders are locking gains. Article Title

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on WDC. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Wall Street Zen raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $340.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Wednesday. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of Western Digital from $240.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $262.25.

Western Digital Stock Down 7.2%

The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $198.69 and its 200-day moving average price is $140.59. The stock has a market capitalization of $91.34 billion, a PE ratio of 27.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 1.80.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.77 EPS. Analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The company 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 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 5.02%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director Roxanne Oulman sold 1,800 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $154.42, for a total value of $277,956.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 3,863 shares in the company, valued at approximately $596,524.46. This represents a 31.79% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 2,801 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $160.57, for a total transaction of $449,756.57. Following the sale, the insider owned 144,596 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,217,779.72. The trade was a 1.90% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 6,816 shares of company stock valued at $1,102,348. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its position in shares of Western Digital by 7.7% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,698,000 after buying an additional 3,019 shares during the last quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $56,000 after acquiring an additional 967 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 2nd quarter valued at about $307,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 2.6% in the second quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 46,586 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,981,000 after acquiring an additional 1,191 shares during the period. Finally, Ameritas Advisory Services LLC purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the second quarter valued at approximately $83,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

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.