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Western Digital (WDC) Gains As Market Dips: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, Western Digital (WDC - Free Report) closed at $56.71, marking a +0.64% move from the previous day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.87%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.08%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.54%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of hard drives for businesses and personal computers had lost 0.25% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Computer and Technology sector's loss of 1.23% and lagged the S&P 500's gain of 0.7% in that time.

Western Digital will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $2.13, up 208.7% from the prior-year quarter. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.8 billion, up 21.79% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $8.72 per share and revenue of $19.58 billion, which would represent changes of +91.65% and +15.73%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Western Digital. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. To benefit from this, we have developed the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model which takes these estimate changes into account and provides an actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Western Digital is holding a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell) right now.

Digging into valuation, Western Digital currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 6.46. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 18.87, so we one might conclude that Western Digital is trading at a discount comparatively.

The Computer- Storage Devices industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 201, which puts it in the bottom 21% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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