Western Digital (WDC) closed at $63.99 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.11% move from the prior day. The stock's change was more than the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.52%. On the other hand, the Dow registered a gain of 0.63%, and the technology-centric Nasdaq increased by 0.48%.
Coming into today, shares of the maker of hard drives for businesses and personal computers had gained 22.77% in the past month. In that same time, the Computer and Technology sector gained 7.56%, while the S&P 500 gained 4.27%.
Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of Western Digital in its upcoming earnings disclosure. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of $1.47, marking a 2.08% rise compared to the same quarter of the previous year. In the meantime, our current consensus estimate forecasts the revenue to be $2.45 billion, indicating a 34.79% decline compared to the corresponding quarter of the prior year.
For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $4.73 per share and a revenue of $9.37 billion, demonstrating changes of +2465% and -27.95%, respectively, from the preceding year.
Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Western Digital. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the business and profitability.
Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending stock price performance. To capitalize on this, we've crafted the Zacks Rank, a unique model that incorporates these estimate changes and offers a practical rating system.
The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. Western Digital is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Looking at its valuation, Western Digital is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 13.37. This signifies a discount in comparison to the average Forward P/E of 13.69 for its industry.
The Computer- Storage Devices industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 164, positioning it in the bottom 34% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Remember to apply Zacks.com to follow these and more stock-moving metrics during the upcoming trading sessions.
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Western Digital Corporation (WDC): Free Stock Analysis ReportThis article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).
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