USA Financial Formulas Reduces Stock Holdings in Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Key Points

• USA Financial Formulas cut its stake in Western Digital by 53.8% in Q4, selling 4,982 shares and ending the period with 4,273 shares valued at about $736,000.
• Other institutions were more active in the quarter — Exchange Traded Concepts increased its position by 378.7% to 43,124 shares (~$7.43M) — and hedge funds/institutions now own 92.51% of WDC's stock.
• Analysts remain broadly positive: MarketBeat shows a consensus of Moderate Buy with an average target of $265.58 (several firms at $300–$325), and WDC recently beat EPS and revenue estimates while trading near $275.

USA Financial Formulas lessened its stake in Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC - Free Report) by 53.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 4,273 shares of the data storage provider's stock after selling 4,982 shares during the quarter. USA Financial Formulas' holdings in Western Digital were worth $736,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC lifted its position in shares of Western Digital by 378.7% during the fourth quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 43,124 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $7,429,000 after purchasing an additional 34,116 shares in the last quarter. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Western Digital by 10.1% in the 4th quarter. Pallas Capital Advisors LLC now owns 19,595 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $3,376,000 after buying an additional 1,805 shares in the last quarter. Net Worth Advisory Group purchased a new position in Western Digital in the 4th quarter valued at about $260,000. JFS Wealth Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 41.5% during the fourth quarter. JFS Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 293 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $50,000 after acquiring an additional 86 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dakota Wealth Management increased its position in shares of Western Digital by 27.3% during the fourth quarter. Dakota Wealth Management now owns 4,261 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $734,000 after acquiring an additional 913 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 92.51% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on WDC. New Street Research set a $250.00 price objective on Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. Wedbush restated an "outperform" rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their price target on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, January 30th. UBS Group set a $306.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Argus set a $300.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Tuesday, February 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Western Digital currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $265.58.

Western Digital News Summary

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

• Positive Sentiment: Cloud growth and margin upside highlighted as a key thesis for WDC’s next leg of revenue and margin expansion. Western Digital: Cloud Key Driver To Growth And Margins
• Positive Sentiment: Technical market action: a recent trading signal coincided with a rebound in WDC shares, supporting near-term momentum. Western Digital Shares Rebound, Climb 3% After Key Trading Signal
• Positive Sentiment: Analyst comparisons favor WDC over peers like NetApp on AI-driven storage demand and cash returns, reinforcing buy-case narratives. Western Digital vs. NetApp: Which Data Storage Stock is the Better Buy?
• Positive Sentiment: WD is part of an open-source quantum error correction collaboration (OQD + QuScript), signaling R&D breadth that may support longer-term enterprise opportunities. OQD Launches Open-Source Collaboration with WD and QuScript to Advance Quantum Error Correction
• Neutral Sentiment: Retail promotions and deep discounts on WD-branded SSDs/HDDs (Amazon/Best Buy sales) could boost volume but also reflect aggressive consumer pricing. Upgrade your NAS storage with this WD 2TB SSD - now $240 off during Amazon's Spring Sale
• Negative Sentiment: Google’s new TurboQuant algorithm has raised investor concerns that AI models could require materially less memory, potentially reducing hardware demand long-term. Google Just Unveiled TurboQuant: Should You Sell Sandisk Stock Now?
• Negative Sentiment: Sector reaction and a Micron selloff reflect investor skepticism about how sustainable AI-driven memory demand will be if efficiency improvements proliferate. Micron Drop Raises A Bigger AI Question
• Negative Sentiment: Broader market and interest-rate concerns are pressuring computer and memory stocks generally, tempering upside for WDC despite company-level positives. SNDK, WDC and STX Forecasts – Computer Companies Fall with Everything Else

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Western Digital news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the firm'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 sale, the insider directly owned 107,794 shares in the company, valued at approximately $29,137,796.14. This trade represents a 8.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $268.27, for a total transaction of $2,501,349.48. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 121,682 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $32,643,630.14. This trade represents a 7.12% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884 over the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Western Digital Stock Performance

WDC stock opened at $275.34 on Friday. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $272.75 and its 200 day simple moving average is $193.78. Western Digital Corporation has a 12-month low of $28.83 and a 12-month high of $319.62. The firm has a market cap of $93.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.62, a P/E/G ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 1.76. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The firm had revenue of $3.02 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.77 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, March 5th were paid a $0.125 dividend. This represents a $0.50 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.2%. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, March 5th. Western Digital's payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.