Western Digital Corporation $WDC Stake Boosted by Profund Advisors LLC

Key Points

• Profund Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Western Digital by 442.2% in the fourth quarter, ending with 32,109 shares valued at about $5.53 million.
• Western Digital is benefiting from AI-driven storage demand, with reports pointing to stronger pricing power in mass-capacity drives and new product momentum, including post-quantum cryptography-enabled hard drives.
• The stock has seen a wave of bullish analyst action, including multiple raised price targets and upgrades, while the company also beat quarterly earnings expectations and increased its dividend to $0.15 per share.

Profund Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC - Free Report) by 442.2% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 32,109 shares of the data storage provider's stock after acquiring an additional 26,187 shares during the period. Profund Advisors LLC's holdings in Western Digital were worth $5,531,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 12.3% during the 3rd quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. now owns 52,317 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $6,281,000 after acquiring an additional 5,731 shares in the last quarter. LBP AM SA purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $641,000. AustralianSuper Pty Ltd purchased a new position in shares of Western Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $34,244,000. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 399.8% in the third quarter. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. now owns 32,487 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $3,900,000 after purchasing an additional 25,987 shares in the last quarter. Finally, NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC boosted its holdings in Western Digital by 75.4% in the fourth quarter. NorthCrest Asset Manangement LLC now owns 9,465 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $1,778,000 after purchasing an additional 4,068 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

More Western Digital News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Western Digital unveiled post-quantum cryptography-enabled Ultrastar UltraSMR hard drives, highlighting its push into next-generation, AI-era infrastructure security and potentially expanding enterprise demand. WD Advances Next-Generation Trusted Infrastructure with Industry’s First Post-Quantum Cryptography Hard Drives to Help Secure the Future of AI Data
• Positive Sentiment: Reports about AI storage demand suggest Western Digital and Seagate are benefiting from tighter supply and better pricing power in mass-capacity drives, which is supportive for revenue and margins. Seagate and Western Digital: AI Storage Demand Is Now Showing Up in Pricing Power
• Positive Sentiment: Broader coverage of the AI memory/storage boom is drawing investor attention to Western Digital as one of the names positioned to benefit from infrastructure spending. Memory Chip Stocks to Watch: Micron (MU), SK Hynix, and Western Digital Lead AI Boom
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst sentiment remains constructive, with Western Digital receiving a “Moderate Buy” consensus rating, but this is a supportive backdrop rather than a fresh catalyst. Western Digital Corporation NASDAQ: WDC Receives Consensus Recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from Analysts
• Neutral Sentiment: Other articles on Micron and SanDisk largely reinforce the same industry theme: AI demand is improving the outlook for memory and storage suppliers, but they do not appear to be direct company-specific catalysts for Western Digital. Why Did Micron Stock Drop Today? Why Did Sandisk Stock Drop Today?

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on WDC. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $405.00 to $500.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, May 1st. Mizuho set a $470.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Friday, May 1st. Zacks Research upgraded shares of Western Digital from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Robert W. Baird upped their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $310.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Monday, May 4th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $495.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, April 27th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $395.83.

Western Digital Price Performance

WDC stock opened at $458.68 on Tuesday. Western Digital Corporation has a 52-week low of $49.00 and a 52-week high of $525.15. The company has a 50-day moving average of $356.14 and a two-hundred day moving average of $260.04. The stock has a market capitalization of $158.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.38 and a beta of 2.10.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The company had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 55.29% and a return on equity of 42.95%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 45.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.57 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Stockholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be given a dividend of $0.15 per share. This is an increase from Western Digital's previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 5th. Western Digital's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 2.99%.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Vidyadhara K. Gubbi sold 10,148 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $270.31, for a total transaction of $2,743,105.88. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 107,794 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $29,137,796.14. This represents a 8.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated 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 $32,643,630.14. This represents a 7.12% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 53,679 shares of company stock valued at $18,049,314. Insiders own 0.18% of the company's stock.

Western Digital 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.

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