Seagate Technology Sees Unusually High Options Volume (NASDAQ:STX)

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) saw unusually large options trading activity on Wednesday. Investors purchased 9,533 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 39% compared to the average daily volume of 6,854 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have issued reports on STX. Susquehanna raised their target price on Seagate Technology from $65.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “negative” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. UBS Group upped their target price on shares of Seagate Technology from $80.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Wednesday. Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Seagate Technology from $115.00 to $90.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 14th. Northland Securities restated an “outperform” rating and set a $160.00 price target (up previously from $144.00) on shares of Seagate Technology in a report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Mizuho decreased their price target on Seagate Technology from $115.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Seagate Technology has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $114.89.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Seagate Technology news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 20,000 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.56, for a total transaction of $1,691,200.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 555,677 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $46,988,047.12. The trade was a 3.47 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. 0.81% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Seagate Technology

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. World Investment Advisors LLC bought a new position in Seagate Technology during the third quarter worth about $217,000. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB bought a new stake in Seagate Technology in the third quarter valued at approximately $54,000. Optimist Retirement Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Seagate Technology in the third quarter valued at $249,000. Tidal Investments LLC lifted its position in Seagate Technology by 21.3% during the third quarter. Tidal Investments LLC now owns 5,441 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $596,000 after acquiring an additional 956 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Synovus Financial Corp grew its holdings in Seagate Technology by 36.6% in the 3rd quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 4,054 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $444,000 after buying an additional 1,087 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Seagate Technology Stock Down 1.1 %

Shares of Seagate Technology stock opened at $90.01 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $19.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.46 and a beta of 1.21. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $83.39 and a 200-day simple moving average of $93.08. Seagate Technology has a fifty-two week low of $63.19 and a fifty-two week high of $115.32.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, April 29th. The data storage provider reported $1.90 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.75 by $0.15. The company had revenue of $2.16 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.14 billion. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 63.48% and a net margin of 14.67%. The business’s revenue was up 30.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.33 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Seagate Technology will post 6.83 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, July 8th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, June 25th will be given a $0.72 dividend. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.20%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, June 25th. Seagate Technology’s payout ratio is presently 52.65%.

Seagate Technology Company Profile

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.