Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Price Target Raised to $270.00

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) had its price target raised by Rosenblatt Securities from $165.00 to $270.00 in a report issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

WDC has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Evercore ISI reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $230.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 16th. Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $170.00 to $197.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 20th. TD Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Morgan Stanley increased their target price on Western Digital to $228.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Finally, Susquehanna lifted their price target on Western Digital from $135.00 to $205.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, January 16th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $206.29.

Western Digital Stock Performance

WDC stock opened at $243.29 on Tuesday. Western Digital has a 1-year low of $28.83 and a 1-year high of $247.94. The company has a current ratio of 1.21, a quick ratio of 0.94 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42. The firm has a market cap of $83.18 billion, a PE ratio of 35.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.16 and a beta of 1.78. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $180.97 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $128.66.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.57 by $0.21. Western Digital had a return on equity of 30.89% and a net margin of 21.37%.The company had revenue of $2.82 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.72 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.78 earnings per share. Western Digital’s revenue was up 27.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Western Digital has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-2.030 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Western Digital will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Stockholders of record on Thursday, December 4th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 4th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.2%. This is a positive change from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 7.28%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Western Digital news, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $272,272.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 3,585 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $150.69, for a total transaction of $3,013,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 645,467 shares in the company, valued at $97,265,422.23. This trade represents a 3.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 26,816 shares of company stock worth $4,116,148 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.18% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Western Digital

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Western Digital by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,282,393 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,196,484,000 after purchasing an additional 243,177 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Western Digital by 2.0% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,305,289 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $593,045,000 after buying an additional 186,030 shares during the last quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth about $791,317,000. Holocene Advisors LP grew its stake in Western Digital by 8.5% in 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 buying an additional 431,419 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Northern Trust Corp raised its holdings in Western Digital by 11.2% in the 3rd quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 3,805,463 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $456,884,000 after acquiring an additional 384,103 shares during the period. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Analyst upgrades and big price‑target hikes — Several firms (Citigroup, Rosenblatt, Bank of America and others) raised targets and reiterated buy/overweight ratings, giving immediate validation to higher valuation expectations and helping lift WDC shares. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Sector rotation into storage on the back of AI — Institutional flows are shifting from GPUs to storage as AI needs move from compute to massive capacity and checkpointing, boosting demand (and pricing power) for HDDs and SSDs that Western Digital supplies. This narrative is fuelling multiple upgrades and higher forward estimates. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Earnings beat momentum — Analysts (Zacks coverage) note WDC has a strong history of beating estimates and says the company has the setup to outpace consensus again next quarter, supporting upside to near-term EPS expectations. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Corporate catalysts and shareholder returns — Western Digital’s Innovation Day (Feb. 3) to highlight HAMR and data‑center roadmap, plus a recent 25% quarterly dividend increase, give tangible catalysts that could reinforce the AI‑storage investment thesis. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider sale is minor — An officer sold 447 shares (~$229 avg) in a routine filing; small relative to total holdings and not an obvious red flag for management conviction. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and pullback risk — Several articles warn WDC’s rapid multi‑hundred‑percent rally may be overextended; a reversion in supply/pricing dynamics or slowing AI spending could trigger volatility and a meaningful pullback. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Not a pure AI play — Analysts caution WDC is a storage/cycle stock; AI can materially help fundamentals but won’t eliminate traditional cycle risk, so upside may be lumpy and sensitive to memory supply dynamics. Read More.

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.