Seagate Technology's (STX) Hold Rating Reaffirmed at Benchmark

Benchmark reiterated their hold rating on shares of Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX - Free Report) in a research report report published on Wednesday morning, Benzinga reports.

STX has been the topic of a number of other reports. Barclays decreased their price target on Seagate Technology from $85.00 to $80.00 and set an equal weight rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. Evercore ISI began coverage on Seagate Technology in a research note on Tuesday, February 27th. They issued an outperform rating and a $110.00 price target on the stock. Robert W. Baird lifted their price target on Seagate Technology from $70.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on Seagate Technology from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research note on Thursday, January 25th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upgraded Seagate Technology from an equal weight rating to an overweight rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $73.00 to $115.00 in a research report on Tuesday, March 26th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $94.53.

Seagate Technology Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:STX traded up $0.58 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $87.11. The company had a trading volume of 7,274,222 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,855,891. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -24.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 703.97 and a beta of 1.04. The stock's fifty day moving average price is $89.29 and its 200 day moving average price is $82.61. Seagate Technology has a fifty-two week low of $54.47 and a fifty-two week high of $101.26.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, April 23rd. The data storage provider reported $0.33 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.29 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $1.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.68 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.43) EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was down 11.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Seagate Technology will post 0.1 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, July 5th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 20th will be paid a dividend of $0.70 per share. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.21%. Seagate Technology's dividend payout ratio is presently -80.00%.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Seagate Technology

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in Seagate Technology by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,006,681 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $2,049,450,000 after acquiring an additional 425,117 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its stake in Seagate Technology by 9.2% during the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 17,680,400 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $1,166,022,000 after acquiring an additional 1,485,937 shares during the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors grew its stake in shares of Seagate Technology by 39.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 16,614,884 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $1,418,413,000 after buying an additional 4,685,454 shares in the last quarter. Sanders Capital LLC grew its stake in shares of Seagate Technology by 3.0% in the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 15,486,153 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $1,322,053,000 after buying an additional 443,768 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Seagate Technology by 13.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 13,929,708 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $918,664,000 after buying an additional 1,612,264 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology Holdings plc provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and internationally. It provides mass capacity storage products, including enterprise nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise nearline solid state drives (SSDs), enterprise nearline systems, video and image HDDs, and network-attached storage drives.