Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Stock Price Up 8.6% – Should You Buy?

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s share price rose 8.6% on Friday . The stock traded as high as $283.93 and last traded at $282.58. Approximately 9,818,070 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 10% from the average daily volume of 10,851,529 shares. The stock had previously closed at $260.19.

Key Stories Impacting Western Digital

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

• Positive Sentiment: Board approved an incremental $4 billion share-repurchase program — a large, explicit capital-return move that supports demand for the stock and signals confidence from the board. Reuters: Western Digital adds $4 billion to buyback plan
• Positive Sentiment: Innovation Day unveiled an AI-focused storage roadmap (claims of up to 8x performance improvements and path to 100TB+ HDDs), reinforcing WDC’s positioning in AI training/data-center storage — supports longer-term demand expectations. PCWorld: WD maps out 8x performance boosts
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst community is upgrading WDC and lifting targets (several notes to Buy/Overweight and new street-high targets), which fuels short-term momentum and buy-side interest. Barchart: New street-high price target
• Positive Sentiment: Recent quarterly results beat estimates (revenue and EPS strength) and reinforce the “memory supercycle” / AI-driven storage demand thesis — supports earnings growth expectations. Zacks: WDC is up 5.85% in one week
• Neutral Sentiment: Sandisk’s dramatic rally (spun out from WDC) is lifting sentiment across the memory/storage complex — helpful for WDC thematically but also highlights increased sector volatility and comparatives. MarketBeat: Sandisk’s Swings Are Getting Bigger
• Neutral Sentiment: Broader policy moves to secure supply chains for critical minerals are supportive over the long run for domestic hardware supply, but they are not an immediate stock catalyst. MarketBeat: Critical minerals policy
• Negative Sentiment: CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares (~$5.1M) in early February (SEC filing) — an insider sale that can prompt some near-term profit-taking despite his continued large ownership. SEC filing: Insider sale disclosure

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on WDC. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, October 31st. Zacks Research raised shares of Western Digital from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 13th. Susquehanna reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $285.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday. New Street Research set a $250.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $265.58.

Western Digital Trading Up 8.6%

The firm has a market capitalization of $95.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.34, a PEG ratio of 0.70 and a beta of 1.80. The business’s 50 day moving average is $202.97 and its two-hundred day moving average is $142.32. 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 released its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. Western Digital’s quarterly revenue was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $1.77 EPS. Analysts expect 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. Stockholders of record on Thursday, March 5th will be paid a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s payout ratio is currently 5.02%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 2,801 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $160.57, for a total transaction of $449,756.57. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 144,596 shares in the company, valued at approximately $23,217,779.72. This represents a 1.90% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of Western Digital 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 in the company, valued at approximately $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 26,816 shares of company stock worth $6,211,148. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in WDC. SYM FINANCIAL Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the second quarter valued at $225,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. increased its position in Western Digital by 12.3% in the third quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 52,317 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $6,281,000 after purchasing an additional 5,731 shares during the period. LBP AM SA bought a new stake in Western Digital during the 3rd quarter worth about $641,000. Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position in Western Digital by 9.6% during the 2nd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 30,434 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,938,000 after purchasing an additional 2,656 shares during the period. Finally, Callan Family Office LLC bought a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at about $919,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.