Cantor Fitzgerald Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Stock

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) had its target price upped by Cantor Fitzgerald from $110.00 to $125.00 in a research note issued to investors on Monday morning,Benzinga reports. They currently have a neutral rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

Other research analysts have also issued research reports about the company. BNP Paribas Exane raised Seagate Technology from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $100.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, May 16th. StockNews.com cut Seagate Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 28th. Benchmark raised shares of Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Northland Securities restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $160.00 price objective (up from $144.00) on shares of Seagate Technology in a research note on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Bank of America lowered their target price on shares of Seagate Technology from $130.00 to $112.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, March 13th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eight have given a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Seagate Technology has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $116.21.

Seagate Technology Stock Down 2.4%

Shares of STX opened at $104.43 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $22.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.09 and a beta of 1.32. The company’s fifty day moving average is $85.77 and its 200-day moving average is $92.60. Seagate Technology has a 12 month low of $63.19 and a 12 month high of $115.32.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, April 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.90 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.75 by $0.15. Seagate Technology had a net margin of 14.67% and a negative return on equity of 63.48%. The firm had revenue of $2.16 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.14 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.33 earnings per share. Seagate Technology’s revenue for the quarter was up 30.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts predict that Seagate Technology will post 6.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 25th will be given a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, June 25th. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.76%. Seagate Technology’s dividend payout ratio is currently 41.62%.

Insider Transactions at Seagate Technology

In other news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.56, for a total value of $1,691,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 555,677 shares in the company, valued at approximately $46,988,047.12. This represents a 3.47% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.81% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in STX. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Seagate Technology by 2.7% in the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 28,743,126 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $2,441,729,000 after purchasing an additional 769,009 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in Seagate Technology by 12.9% during the first quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 18,920,792 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,607,321,000 after acquiring an additional 2,161,191 shares in the last quarter. Sanders Capital LLC raised its stake in Seagate Technology by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 16,530,152 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,426,717,000 after acquiring an additional 162,561 shares in the last quarter. Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 56.5% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 15,621,162 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $1,348,262,000 after acquiring an additional 5,640,443 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Seagate Technology by 3.2% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,295,225 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $370,013,000 after purchasing an additional 132,713 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.87% of the company’s stock.

Seagate Technology Company Profile

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.