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The most recent trading session ended with Western Digital (WDC) standing at $65.30, reflecting a +0.28% shift from the previouse trading day's closing. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.38%. Elsewhere, the Dow lost 0.25%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 1.24%.
Coming into today, shares of the maker of hard drives for businesses and personal computers had gained 3.69% in the past month. In that same time, the Computer and Technology sector gained 3.43%, while the S&P 500 gained 1.17%.
Market participants will be closely following the financial results of Western Digital in its upcoming release. The company is expected to report EPS of $1.91, up 376.81% from the prior-year quarter. In the meantime, our current consensus estimate forecasts the revenue to be $4.3 billion, indicating a 41.8% growth compared to the corresponding quarter of the prior year.
For the entire fiscal year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $7.32 per share and a revenue of $16.74 billion, representing changes of +3760% and +28.74%, respectively, from the prior year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Western Digital should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.
Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending 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. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. Right now, Western Digital possesses a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
In terms of valuation, Western Digital is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 8.9. This denotes a discount relative to the industry's average Forward P/E of 13.91.
The Computer- Storage Devices industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 82, which puts it in the top 33% 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.