Strs Ohio Sells 16,985 Shares of Western Digital Corporation $WDC

Strs Ohio cut its holdings in shares of Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC) by 8.9% during the 3rd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 173,277 shares of the data storage provider’s stock after selling 16,985 shares during the period. Strs Ohio owned about 0.05% of Western Digital worth $20,804,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. ORG Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Western Digital by 124.5% in the third quarter. ORG Partners LLC now owns 211 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 117 shares during the last quarter. Private Wealth Management Group LLC raised its position in Western Digital by 102.5% during the 2nd quarter. Private Wealth Management Group LLC now owns 399 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $26,000 after purchasing an additional 202 shares during the last quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in Western Digital by 4,070.0% during the 2nd quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $27,000 after buying an additional 407 shares during the period. NewSquare Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Western Digital by 86.9% in the 2nd quarter. NewSquare Capital LLC now owns 441 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 205 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Grove Bank & Trust acquired a new stake in shares of Western Digital in the third quarter valued at about $30,000. 92.51% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

WDC has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Citigroup lifted their price objective on Western Digital from $200.00 to $280.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Wedbush boosted their price target on shares of Western Digital from $90.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 16th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Western Digital in a research report on Monday, December 29th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on shares of Western Digital from $94.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, October 31st. Finally, UBS Group upped their price target on shares of Western Digital from $145.00 to $230.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Western Digital presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $206.29.

Western Digital Stock Down 2.8%

Shares of NASDAQ WDC opened at $236.39 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.94, a current ratio of 1.21 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.42. The firm has a market cap of $80.82 billion, a PE ratio of 34.41, a P/E/G ratio of 1.13 and a beta of 1.78. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $182.54 and its 200 day simple moving average is $130.31. Western Digital Corporation has a 12-month low of $28.83 and a 12-month high of $247.94.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 30th. The data storage provider reported $1.78 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.57 by $0.21. The firm had revenue of $2.82 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.72 billion. Western Digital had a net margin of 21.37% and a return on equity of 30.89%. The business’s revenue was up 27.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $1.78 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 1.730-2.030 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Western Digital Corporation will post 4.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, December 18th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, December 4th were issued a $0.125 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, December 4th. This is an increase from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.10. This represents a $0.50 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.2%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio is currently 7.28%.

Insider Transactions at Western Digital

In other news, Director Kimberly Alexy sold 1,768 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $154.00, for a total transaction of $272,272.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 3,585 shares in the company, valued at $552,090. The trade was a 33.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 447 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $229.00, for a total value of $102,363.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 143,318 shares in the company, valued at approximately $32,819,822. This represents a 0.31% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 26,816 shares of company stock worth $4,116,148. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Western Digital News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Western Digital this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Multiple analyst upgrades and sizable price‑target increases (Citigroup, Rosenblatt, Bank of America and others) have lifted sentiment and supported the rally into record highs. Forget the Chips, Buy Memory
• Positive Sentiment: AI-driven demand is rotating investor money from GPUs to storage — institutional flow into NAND/SSD and HDD suppliers is increasing pricing power and revenue visibility for WDC’s data‑center HDDs and SSD roadmap. AI-money moving to storage
• Positive Sentiment: WDC has strong recent earnings‑surprise history and Wall Street expects continued earnings growth; that raises the chance of another beat at the upcoming quarterly report. Will WDC beat estimates?
• Neutral Sentiment: Corporate cadence: WDC is hosting an Innovation Day and has raised its dividend — both can reinforce the narrative but are event‑driven and dependent on execution/communication. Innovation Day / dividend context
• Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity: a small officer sale (447 shares) was disclosed; size and frequency indicate routine liquidity rather than management signaling. SEC filing
• Negative Sentiment: Price pullback today amid broader market strength — traders appear to be taking profits after WDC hit fresh 52‑week/all‑time highs. WDC stock dips while market gains
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation and cycle risk concerns: several commentators warn the rally could be stretched and exposed to a pullback if supply/pricing dynamics normalize or AI demand growth slows. Pullback risk analysis

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.