Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Shares Gap Down - What's Next?

Key Points

• Seagate Technology shares gapped down before trading, opening at $785.11 after closing at $828.30, and were last down about 6.9% to $783.58.
• Analyst sentiment remains broadly positive, with 22 Buy ratings and 5 Hold ratings; the consensus target price is $898.52, despite a few mixed rating changes.
• The company recently posted strong quarterly results, beating EPS and revenue estimates, and it also paid a quarterly dividend of $0.74 per share, though insiders have been selling stock in recent months.

Seagate Technology Holdings PLC (NASDAQ:STX - Get Free Report)'s stock price gapped down prior to trading on Thursday . The stock had previously closed at $828.30, but opened at $785.11. Seagate Technology shares last traded at $783.5790, with a volume of 697,274 shares traded.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on STX. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Seagate Technology from $385.00 to $700.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 29th. Fox Advisors cut shares of Seagate Technology from an "overweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating in a research report on Monday, June 22nd. Weiss Ratings reiterated a "buy (b)" rating on shares of Seagate Technology in a research note on Wednesday, June 24th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on shares of Seagate Technology from $775.00 to $920.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, June 11th. Finally, Barclays increased their price objective on Seagate Technology from $750.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 27th. Twenty-two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $898.52.

Seagate Technology Stock Down 6.9%

The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $887.33 and its 200-day simple moving average is $584.82. The company has a market cap of $172.90 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 73.16 and a beta of 2.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.16, a current ratio of 1.33 and a quick ratio of 0.85.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, April 28th. The data storage provider reported $4.10 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $3.51 by $0.59. The business had revenue of $3.11 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.96 billion. Seagate Technology had a return on equity of 1,005.65% and a net margin of 21.60%.The business's quarterly revenue was up 44.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $1.90 EPS. Seagate Technology has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 4.800-5.200 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Seagate Technology Holdings PLC will post 14.14 earnings per share for the current year.

Seagate Technology Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, July 7th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, June 24th were given a dividend of $0.74 per share. The ex-dividend date was Wednesday, June 24th. This represents a $2.96 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.4%. Seagate Technology's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 28.08%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Seagate Technology

In other Seagate Technology news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 30,000 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $751.29, for a total value of $22,538,700.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 339,591 shares in the company, valued at approximately $255,131,322.39. The trade was a 8.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, EVP Ban Seng Teh sold 8,003 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $817.28, for a total transaction of $6,540,691.84. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 3,691 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,016,580.48. The trade was a 68.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 151,069 shares of company stock valued at $126,191,753. Insiders own 0.79% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in STX. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Seagate Technology by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 9,370,805 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $2,587,535,000 after purchasing an additional 94,527 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its position in Seagate Technology by 5.1% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 5,317,516 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $1,464,391,000 after buying an additional 258,151 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Seagate Technology by 5.0% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,896,815 shares of the data storage provider's stock valued at $1,343,683,000 after buying an additional 234,436 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its position in Seagate Technology by 8.3% during the 4th quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 3,193,063 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $879,338,000 after buying an additional 243,551 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its position in Seagate Technology by 1,510.1% during the 4th quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 2,008,516 shares of the data storage provider's stock worth $553,125,000 after buying an additional 1,883,769 shares during the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology NASDAQ: STX is a global data storage company that designs, manufactures and sells a broad range of storage products and systems. The firm's product portfolio includes traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), solid-state drives (SSDs), hybrid storage devices and integrated storage systems aimed at enterprise, cloud, OEM and consumer markets. Seagate also provides services that support its hardware offerings, including data recovery and storage management solutions.

Seagate's products are used in a wide array of applications, from large-scale data centers and cloud infrastructure to desktop and portable consumer devices.

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.