New York, January 21, 2026, 19:50 EST — After-hours
- Seagate shares jumped 5.6% to $344.22 in after-hours trading.
- BNP Paribas upgraded the stock, while Citi and BofA raised their price targets over the last two days.
- Seagate’s fiscal Q2 earnings report is due January 27, marking the next key catalyst.
Shares of Seagate Technology Holdings plc climbed 5.6% to $344.22 in after-hours trading Wednesday, boosted by optimistic analyst upgrades for the hard-drive maker. The stock fluctuated between $324.06 and $349.90 during the session, with roughly 4.7 million shares traded.
BNP Paribas analyst Karl Ackerman bumped Seagate up to Outperform from Neutral, setting a $380 price target. He pointed to strong data center storage demand as a reason the industry upcycle might last longer than initially thought. Ackerman also argued that a valuation reset to “over 20x” earnings for Seagate and Western Digital makes sense. 1
Citi analyst Asiya Merchant bumped up her price target on Seagate to $385 from $320, maintaining a Buy rating. She pointed to strong data center spending by hyperscalers as a key driver. These hyperscalers, the largest cloud operators, typically influence storage demand trends. 2
Bank of America bumped its price target for Seagate to $400 from $320. The bank projects Seagate’s fiscal second-quarter revenue at $2.78 billion, with earnings per share hitting $2.85, positioning results toward the top end of the company’s guidance range. 3
The timing is crucial since Seagate will release its fiscal second-quarter results after U.S. markets shut on January 27. The company has a conference call planned for 5:00 p.m. ET. 4
Storage stocks are riding the wave of the AI-driven data center expansion. Western Digital jumped over 7% Wednesday after multiple firms upgraded their targets ahead of its January 29 earnings release. Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan highlighted demand that “continues to outpace supply” amid steady prices. 5
Seagate and Western Digital lead the hard-disk drive market for bulk storage in data centers, where price per terabyte remains crucial. The key question now is how long this demand will hold—and if it can break the sector’s typical boom-bust pattern.
Investors in Seagate will be zeroing in on cloud order trends, pricing dynamics, and margin updates, along with any hints that customers are still trimming inventories. Even a slight change in messaging on these fronts could hit the stock hard.
That trade can shift fast. Should cloud spending cool off, or prices drop as supply tightens, the case for a “longer upcycle” crumbles — and forecasts can flip just as quickly.
Seagate’s earnings report and outlook, due January 27, will be the next major trigger. Traders will watch closely to see if the recent surge in storage stocks has gone too far, too fast.
