Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Given New $400.00 Price Target at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) had its price target hoisted by stock analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $320.00 to $400.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “overweight” rating on the data storage provider’s stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co.‘s target price suggests a potential upside of 10.57% from the stock’s previous close.

WDC has been the topic of a number of other research reports. UBS Group set a $306.00 target price on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Sanford C. Bernstein raised shares of Western Digital from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $340.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, March 31st. Cantor Fitzgerald lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital to $325.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $325.00 price target on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Finally, Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Western Digital to $405.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday. Twenty-one investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and three have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $297.71.

Western Digital Trading Down 0.9%

Shares of WDC stock traded down $3.22 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $361.78. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,368,693 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,560,823. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $289.34 and its 200-day simple moving average is $213.17. Western Digital has a 12-month low of $35.51 and a 12-month high of $368.40. The company has a quick ratio of 1.19, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.34. The firm has a market capitalization of $122.66 billion, a PE ratio of 36.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.84 and a beta of 1.77.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, January 29th. The data storage provider reported $2.13 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.93 by $0.20. Western Digital had a net margin of 35.52% and a return on equity of 41.53%. The business had revenue of $3.02 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.93 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.77 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 25.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts predict that Western Digital will post 4.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s 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 completion of the transaction, 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. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Matthew E. Massengill sold 36,926 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $260.43, for a total transaction of $9,616,638.18. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 92,795 shares of company stock valued at $24,265,884 in the last 90 days. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. ORG Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% in the 3rd quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 117 shares during the period. Rakuten Securities Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 4,070.0% in the 2nd quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 407 shares during the period. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 551.4% in the 3rd quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 241 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 204 shares during the period. Grove Bank & Trust bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. Finally, Westfuller Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Western Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at about $30,000. 92.51% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.