What Hedge Funds Think About Western Digital Corp. (WDC)

Is Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC) a buy?

In today’s marketplace, there are a multitude of gauges shareholders can use to analyze publicly traded companies. Two of the most innovative are hedge fund and insider trading activity. At Insider Monkey, our studies have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top fund managers can outclass the broader indices by a significant margin (see just how much).

Equally as crucial, positive insider trading sentiment is another way to look at the marketplace. There are plenty of incentives for an insider to downsize shares of his or her company, but only one, very obvious reason why they would behave bullishly. Many academic studies have demonstrated the impressive potential of this tactic if investors know where to look (learn more here).

Thus, let’s analyze the latest info for Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC).

What does the smart money think about Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC)?

Heading into Q3, a total of 37 of the hedge funds we track held long positions in this stock, a change of 12% from one quarter earlier. With hedgies’ sentiment swirling, there exists a few noteworthy hedge fund managers who were increasing their holdings substantially.

Out of the hedge funds we follow, Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management had the largest position in Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC), worth close to $172.3 million, accounting for 0.6% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick of First Pacific Advisors LLC, with a $143.7 million position; the fund has 1.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other hedgies with similar optimism include Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Peter Rathjens Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital and Charles Clough’s Clough Capital Partners.

Now, particular hedge funds have jumped into Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC) headfirst. AQR Capital Management, managed by Cliff Asness, assembled the most outsized position in Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC). AQR Capital Management had 172.3 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. Robert Rodriguez and Steven Romick’s First Pacific Advisors LLC also initiated a $143.7 million position during the quarter. The following funds were also among the new WDC investors: Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group, Peter Rathjens Bruce Clarke and John Campbell’s Arrowstreet Capital, and Charles Clough’s Clough Capital Partners.

Insider trading activity in Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC)

Insider buying is best served when the company we’re looking at has seen transactions within the past half-year. Over the last 180-day time frame, Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC) has seen zero unique insiders buying, and 11 insider sales (see the details of insider trades here).

We’ll also take a look at the relationship between both of these indicators in other stocks similar to Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC). These stocks are Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:BRCD), EMC Corporation (NYSE:EMC), SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK), Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX), and NetApp Inc. (NASDAQ:NTAP). This group of stocks are the members of the data storage devices industry and their market caps resemble WDC’s market cap.