Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. Cuts Stock Position in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Key Points

• Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. cut its Western Digital stake by 31.3% in Q4, selling 82,363 shares and finishing the quarter with 180,739 shares valued at about $31.1 million; institutional investors now own roughly 92.5% of the stock.
• Company insiders have been net sellers recently — 92,795 shares sold over the last three months (≈$24.27M), including insider disposals of ~10,148 and ~9,324 shares at about $270 each that trimmed those positions by 8.6% and 7.1% respectively.
• Despite the selling, analysts are broadly bullish with multiple upgrades and higher price targets (consensus "Moderate Buy," target ≈$285), and WDC reported an earnings beat (Q EPS $2.13 vs. $1.93; revenue $3.02B) while the stock trades near its 52‑week high (~$343).

Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. cut its holdings in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC - Free Report) by 31.3% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 180,739 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 82,363 shares during the quarter. Deprince Race & Zollo Inc. owned 0.05% of Western Digital worth $31,136,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. Burney Co. purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $251,000. U.S. Capital Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. U.S. Capital Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 9,053 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $1,560,000 after buying an additional 544 shares in the last quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 9.8% in the fourth quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 887,059 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $152,814,000 after buying an additional 79,418 shares in the last quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 75.9% in the fourth quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 1,376,751 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $237,173,000 after buying an additional 594,003 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Successful Portfolios LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $189,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total value of $2,743,105.88. Following the transaction, the insider owned 107,794 shares of the company's stock, valued at $29,137,796.14. This represents a 8.60% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total value of $2,501,349.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 121,682 shares in the company, valued at approximately $32,643,630.14. This trade represents a 7.12% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders sold 92,795 shares of company stock worth $24,265,884. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Key Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley and Bernstein reaffirm/raised ratings and price targets, supporting near-term upside from fresh bullish sell‑side checks on HDD demand. Morgan Stanley and Bernstein Positive on Western Digital (WDC)
• Positive Sentiment: UBS highlights potential for another ~40% gain in memory prices, a macro tailwind that would lift margins and pricing power for WDC’s storage products. UBS Says Memory Prices Could Still Gain 40%. Does That Make Western Digital Stock a Buy Here?
• Positive Sentiment: MarketBeat and other commentators frame recent pullbacks in memory/storage names as buying opportunities given AI-driven demand — this narrative supports continued investor interest. Memory Wipe: The Great TurboQuant Miscalculation (WDC)
• Neutral Sentiment: Western Digital announced an open‑source quantum error‑correction collaboration — positive for long‑term tech leadership but unlikely to move near‑term revenue. Western Digital Taps Open Source Quantum Error Correction For Future Storage
• Neutral Sentiment: Seagate’s divestiture of Lyve Cloud to Wasabi refocuses that rival on mass‑capacity storage; this reshapes competitive dynamics but is ambiguous for WDC’s market share. Seagate Divests Lyve Cloud to Enhance Core Storage Focus
• Neutral Sentiment: Coverage pieces on other storage names (Micron, Silicon Motion) and a Yahoo feature on market winners provide sector context but are not WDC‑specific catalysts. The Cheapest Stock in the S&P 500 Is Up 520% Over the Last Year
• Neutral Sentiment: Reported short‑interest data this cycle is noisy/zeroed out (appears to show an increase but lists 0 shares), so it provides little reliable signal for immediate positioning.
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation concerns after a multi‑bagger year: commentary asks whether WDC is getting expensive following a ~7x one‑year surge, which could prompt profit‑taking or higher volatility. Is It Too Late To Consider Western Digital (WDC) After Its 7x One Year Surge?
• Negative Sentiment: Some analysts and articles are rotating preference to Seagate as the top pick, highlighting competitive pressure and relative valuation tradeoffs that could divert flows from WDC. Move Over, Western Digital! Why Seagate Is the New Top Stock Pick

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

WDC has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. UBS Group set a $306.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research report on Friday, January 30th. TD Cowen boosted their price target on Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein upgraded Western Digital from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $340.00 price target for the company in a research report on Tuesday, March 31st. Argus set a $300.00 price target on Western Digital in a research report on Tuesday, February 3rd. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Western Digital from $260.00 to $335.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Twenty-one research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $285.00.

Western Digital Stock Performance

NASDAQ WDC opened at $343.43 on Monday. The stock's fifty day moving average is $284.31 and its two-hundred day moving average is $208.57. The firm has a market capitalization of $116.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 34.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.79 and a beta of 1.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a current ratio of 1.46. Western Digital Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $33.42 and a fifty-two week high of $349.75.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion for 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% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.77 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Western Digital Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th were paid a dividend of $0.125 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, March 5th. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.1%. Western Digital's payout ratio is 5.02%.

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.

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