In the latest close session, Western Digital (WDC) was down 2.99% at $393.31. The stock trailed the S&P 500, which registered a daily loss of 0.47%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.1%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.25%.
The maker of hard drives for businesses and personal computers's shares have seen a decrease of 15.94% over the last month, not keeping up with the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 6.08% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.15%.
Analysts and investors alike will be keeping a close eye on the performance of Western Digital in its upcoming earnings disclosure. The company is expected to report EPS of $4.07, up 128.65% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $4.16 billion, up 47.45% from the year-ago period.
For the annual period, the Zacks Consensus Estimates anticipate earnings of $20.03 per share and a revenue of $18.78 billion, signifying shifts of +95.99% and +45.39%, respectively, from the last year.
Investors should also pay attention to any latest changes in 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.
Our research demonstrates that these adjustments in estimates directly associate with imminent stock price performance. 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.
The Zacks Rank system, running from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), holds an admirable track record of superior performance, independently audited, with #1 stocks contributing an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed an unchanged state. Western Digital presently features a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
In terms of valuation, Western Digital is presently being traded at a Forward P/E ratio of 20.24. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 10.77, so one might conclude that Western Digital is trading at a premium comparatively.
It's also important to note that WDC currently trades at a PEG ratio of 1.69. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. The Computer- Storage Devices industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 1.43 as of yesterday's close.
The Computer- Storage Devices industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry, currently bearing a Zacks Industry Rank of 4, finds itself in the top 2% echelons of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the vigor of our specific industry groups by computing the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks incorporated in the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
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Western Digital Corporation (WDC): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).