Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Shares Up 16.1% After Analyst Upgrade

Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:WDC)’s share price shot up 16.1% during mid-day trading on Monday after Morgan Stanley raised their price target on the stock from $488.00 to $650.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Western Digital traded as high as $658.80 and last traded at $653.53. 9,417,247 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 7% from the average session volume of 8,769,892 shares. The stock had previously closed at $562.92.

WDC has been the topic of several other research reports. Jefferies Financial Group set a $575.00 price objective on shares of Western Digital in a research note on Tuesday, May 26th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $500.00 to $575.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Monday, June 1st. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $450.00 to $620.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 27th. Robert W. Baird raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital from $310.00 to $450.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Monday, May 4th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald raised their price objective on shares of Western Digital to $660.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 1st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $450.46.

Insider Buying and Selling at Western Digital

In other Western Digital news, insider Cynthia L. Tregillis sold 432 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction on Friday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $545.60, for a total transaction of $235,699.20. Following the sale, the insider owned 116,643 shares in the company, valued at $63,640,420.80. The trade was a 0.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Irving Tan sold 20,000 shares of Western Digital stock in a transaction on Friday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $411.84, for a total transaction of $8,236,800.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 598,150 shares in the company, valued at $246,342,096. This represents a 3.24% decrease in their position. 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. Insiders have sold 29,322 shares of company stock worth $12,768,550 over the last three months. 0.18% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Western Digital News Roundup

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

• Positive Sentiment: Morgan Stanley reaffirmed its Overweight rating on Western Digital and raised its price target to $650, reinforcing a bullish view on the stock. What’s Going On With The Jump In Western Digital Stock?
• Positive Sentiment: JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley both set $650 targets, citing tight HDD supply and rising AI-driven demand for storage capacity, which is boosting sentiment across Western Digital and other memory/storage names. Western Digital (WDC) Stock Soars 15% as Wall Street Analysts Set $650 Price Target
• Positive Sentiment: The company’s recent earnings update showed strong operating momentum, including 45.5% year-over-year revenue growth and margin expansion, supporting the case that Western Digital is benefiting from a stronger AI storage cycle. Western Digital Corporation Will Hit $600 on This Date
• Positive Sentiment: Broader sector strength is also helping, as memory and storage stocks rose on renewed risk appetite and AI trade optimism, lifting WDC alongside peers like Micron and SanDisk. Micron and Western Digital Climb 8%, SanDisk Rises 6% on Iran Truce
• Neutral Sentiment: Several market write-ups highlighted Western Digital as an AI memory/storage beneficiary and one of Wall Street’s favored names, adding to the bullish narrative but offering no new company-specific catalyst. Western Digital, Seagate Stocks Keep Soaring. Why They’re Morgan Stanley’s Top Picks.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Western Digital

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of WDC. Rakuten Securities Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 4,070.0% during the second quarter. Rakuten Securities Inc. now owns 417 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 407 shares during the period. Avion Wealth lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 163.8% during the fourth quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 182 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 113 shares during the period. Valley Wealth Managers Inc. bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the first quarter valued at $32,000. Swiss RE Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Western Digital during the fourth quarter valued at $32,000. Finally, BOKF NA lifted its holdings in shares of Western Digital by 6,700.0% during the third quarter. BOKF NA now owns 272 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $33,000 after acquiring an additional 268 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.51% of the company’s stock.

Western Digital Stock Up 16.1%

The company has a market capitalization of $225.26 billion, a P/E ratio of 39.02 and a beta of 2.13. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $447.23 and a 200-day simple moving average of $309.01.

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, April 30th. The data storage provider reported $2.72 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $2.39 by $0.33. The company had revenue of $3.34 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.25 billion. Western Digital had a return on equity of 42.95% and a net margin of 55.29%.The business’s revenue was up 45.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.36 earnings per share. Western Digital has set its Q4 2026 guidance at 3.100-3.400 EPS. Analysts predict that Western Digital Corporation will post 9.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Western Digital Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, June 17th. Shareholders of record on Friday, June 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.15 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, June 5th. This is a boost from Western Digital’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.13. This represents a $0.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.1%. Western Digital’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 3.58%.

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.