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

Western Digital (WDC) closed the most recent trading day at $57.18, moving +0.32% from the previous trading session. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.56%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.35%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.43%.

Heading into today, shares of the maker of hard drives for businesses and personal computers had lost 12.45% over the past month, lagging the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 1.71% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.44% in that time.

WDC will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be October 25, 2018. In that report, analysts expect WDC to post earnings of $3.08 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 13.48%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.14 billion, down 0.83% from the year-ago period.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $11.61 per share and revenue of $20.59 billion. These totals would mark changes of -21.18% and -0.28%, respectively, from last year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for WDC. 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.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant. WDC is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Digging into valuation, WDC currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 5.32. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 14.79.

It is also worth noting that WDC currently has a PEG ratio of 0.28. 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 was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.09 at yesterday's closing price.

The Computer- Storage Devices industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 58, which puts it in the top 23% 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.

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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