Western Digital Corporation $WDC Stock Holdings Lifted by Exchange Traded Concepts LLC

Key Points

• Exchange Traded Concepts LLC boosted its stake in Western Digital by 378.7% in Q4, adding 34,116 shares to hold 43,124 shares worth about $7.43 million.
• Western Digital beat estimates with $2.13 EPS and revenue up 25.2% YoY, leading to multiple analyst price-target increases and a consensus rating of Moderate Buy (average target ~$265.58).
• Institutional ownership is high at 92.51%, but insiders have been net sellers—92,795 shares (~$24.3M) sold in the last 90 days—while insiders own just 0.18% of the stock.

Exchange Traded Concepts LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC - Free Report) by 378.7% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The fund owned 43,124 shares of the data storage provider's stock after acquiring an additional 34,116 shares during the period. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC's holdings in Western Digital were worth $7,429,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its position in shares of Western Digital by 7.7% during the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 41,988 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $1,698,000 after purchasing an additional 3,019 shares during the period. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 229.7% during the first quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,388 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $56,000 after purchasing an additional 967 shares during the last quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Western Digital in the 2nd quarter valued at $307,000. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position in shares of Western Digital by 93.6% in the 2nd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 44,376 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $2,840,000 after purchasing an additional 21,453 shares during the period. Finally, Choreo LLC increased its stake in Western Digital by 69.2% in the 2nd quarter. Choreo LLC now owns 9,402 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $602,000 after purchasing an additional 3,845 shares in the last quarter. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Key Headlines Impacting Western Digital

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

Western Digital Price Performance

Shares of Western Digital stock opened at $275.34 on Monday. Western Digital Corporation has a 1 year low of $28.83 and a 1 year high of $319.62. The company 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 1.75. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.19 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $272.75 and a 200 day moving average price of $194.47.

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. The company had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.93 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 41.53% and a net margin of 35.52%.The business's revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.77 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, March 18th. Investors of record on Thursday, March 5th were given 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 0.2%. Western Digital's payout ratio is presently 5.02%.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 9,324 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the insider owned 121,682 shares in the company, valued at $32,643,630.14. This represents a 7.12% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $255.44, for a total transaction of $5,108,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 623,586 shares of the company's stock, valued at $159,288,807.84. This trade represents a 3.11% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 92,795 shares of company stock worth $24,265,884 in the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

WDC has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities restated a "buy" rating and set a $340.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a report on Wednesday, February 4th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $260.00 to $306.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted 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. TD Cowen upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $200.00 to $325.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, January 30th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group set a $250.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, February 3rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have issued a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $265.58.

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.

Want to see what other hedge funds are holding WDC? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC - Free Report).

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.