Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Lifted to “Buy” at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Thursday.

Several other equities research analysts have also issued reports on the company. TD Cowen raised their price objective on Seagate Technology from $110.00 to $135.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Seagate Technology from $110.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Northland Securities raised their price objective on Seagate Technology from $119.00 to $142.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Seagate Technology from $115.00 to $133.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Finally, Susquehanna raised their price objective on Seagate Technology from $55.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “negative” rating in a research note on Wednesday, July 24th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and twelve have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $115.94.

Seagate Technology Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of Seagate Technology stock opened at $112.12 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $104.29 and a 200 day moving average of $99.21. Seagate Technology has a 12 month low of $64.12 and a 12 month high of $115.32. The firm has a market cap of $23.54 billion, a PE ratio of -86.91 and a beta of 1.04.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, July 23rd. The data storage provider reported $1.05 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76 by $0.29. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 8.41% and a net margin of 5.11%. The company had revenue of $1.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.87 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned ($0.29) earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was up 17.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Seagate Technology will post 7.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, October 7th. Shareholders of record on Monday, September 23rd were issued a dividend of $0.70 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, September 23rd. This represents a $2.80 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.50%. Seagate Technology’s payout ratio is currently -217.05%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Seagate Technology news, EVP Ban Seng Teh sold 10,117 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $110.00, for a total transaction of $1,112,870.00. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 5,387 shares in the company, valued at $592,570. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 20,000 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.46, for a total value of $1,869,200.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 654,270 shares in the company, valued at approximately $61,148,074.20. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Ban Seng Teh sold 10,117 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $110.00, for a total value of $1,112,870.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 5,387 shares in the company, valued at $592,570. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 223,284 shares of company stock worth $23,800,887 in the last ninety days. 0.89% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 3.1% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 24,753,076 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,303,274,000 after buying an additional 746,395 shares during the last quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 14.5% during the 1st quarter. Clearbridge Investments LLC now owns 2,656,828 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $247,218,000 after buying an additional 337,464 shares during the last quarter. Duquesne Family Office LLC grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 22.0% during the 2nd quarter. Duquesne Family Office LLC now owns 1,755,278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $181,268,000 after buying an additional 316,295 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 0.9% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,019,657 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $105,306,000 after buying an additional 9,062 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 6.2% during the 1st quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 688,996 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $64,130,000 after buying an additional 40,100 shares during the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

About Seagate Technology

Seagate Technology Holdings plc provides data storage technology and solutions in Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands, and internationally. It provides mass capacity storage products, including enterprise nearline hard disk drives (HDDs), enterprise nearline solid state drives (SSDs), enterprise nearline systems, video and image HDDs, and network-attached storage drives.