NEW YORK, January 1, 2026, 16:20 ET — Market closed
- Western Digital closed at $172.27 on Wednesday, down 2.2% on the day, before U.S. markets shut for New Year’s Day
- The stock more than tripled in 2025, as AI-driven data demand boosted storage hardware names
- Focus shifts to early-January macro data and Western Digital’s next earnings update for fresh demand signals
Western Digital Corp shares fell 2.2% to $172.27 in the final trading session of 2025, and were not trading on Thursday with U.S. markets closed for New Year’s Day.
The late slide came after the data-storage maker’s stock more than tripled in 2025, a year in which investors piled into hardware tied to the artificial intelligence buildout, Reuters reported.
That matters now because Western Digital has become a proxy for how long big data-center customers keep expanding capacity — and how quickly investors take profits after a breakout year.
Western Digital now sells hard disk drives — magnetic storage devices used for high-capacity data retention — after completing the separation of its flash business as Sandisk in February 2025, the company said.
The broader tape also turned lower on Wednesday in thin, holiday-week trade, with the S&P 500 down 0.74%, Reuters said. “It’s perfectly fine in any bull market to have moments of cost,” said Giuseppe Sette, co-founder and president of Reflexivity, describing profit-taking — selling to lock in gains — when liquidity is low. Reuters
Storage peers were weaker too: Seagate Technology slipped 1.7% and Micron Technology fell 2.5%. The iShares Semiconductor ETF lost 1.2% and the Nasdaq-tracking Invesco QQQ ended down 0.8%.
Investors ended 2025 weighing enthusiasm around AI-linked spending against uncertainty over U.S. trade policy, Reuters said — a mix that kept risk appetite sensitive to headlines and rate expectations.
Western Digital traded between $171.26 and $177.00 on Wednesday and finished near the session low, according to the company’s historical stock data. Technicians are watching support near $170 and resistance around $180 after the stock pulled back from late-December levels above $180.
Before the next session, investors will scan S&P Global’s final U.S. manufacturing PMI for December on Jan. 2, a purchasing managers’ index — a survey of factory activity in which readings above 50 indicate expansion.
The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing PMI is due Jan. 5, another closely watched gauge for momentum and pricing pressures that can sway cyclical tech and hardware sentiment.
Rate expectations face a bigger test with the U.S. jobs report on Jan. 9, according to the Labor Department’s release schedule. The Federal Reserve’s Beige Book is due Jan. 14, and policymakers meet Jan. 27–28.
For Western Digital, the next company catalyst is its next quarterly results and guidance for data-center storage demand; Nasdaq’s earnings calendar currently estimates an early-February report, though the company has not confirmed a date.
Until then, traders will be watching whether the stock’s pullback stabilizes quickly after year-end rebalancing — or whether profit-taking continues to bite into AI-linked hardware names as 2026 begins.
