New York, January 22, 2026, 18:14 EST — After-hours
- Western Digital shares climbed roughly 0.6% in after-hours trading, following a volatile day during regular hours.
- New price-target upgrades are shining a spotlight on storage pricing and cloud demand.
- Next week’s earnings report and the investor event on Feb. 3 are drawing traders’ attention.
Western Digital’s shares ticked up 0.6% to $243.29 in after-hours on Thursday, after swinging between $228.67 and $254.94 during the regular session.
The late surge pushes Wall Street deeper into the stock ahead of Western Digital’s quarterly report next week, as multiple firms raised their outlooks over the past two days. This matters because the stock has become a key indicator of whether major cloud operators will continue purchasing high-capacity storage at stable prices. (Investors)
Morgan Stanley’s Erik Woodring named Western Digital his “top pick,” a phrase that’s been buzzing on trading floors this week as the stock’s rally draws quick speculative capital. (Investors)
Bank of America bumped its price target on Western Digital to $257 from $197, maintaining a buy rating. The firm expects the company to hit the upper range of its guidance for revenue, margins, and earnings per share when it reports after the close on Jan. 29. (TipRanks)
Citi analyst Asiya Merchant raised her price target to $280 from $200, maintaining a buy rating. She noted that hyperscaler spending “remains robust,” a nod to the biggest cloud providers continuing to pour money into data centers. (TipRanks)
Rosenblatt’s Kevin Cassidy lifted his price target to $270 from $165, citing higher hard-disk drive prices and growing demand. He highlighted the company’s “build-to-order strategy,” which focuses on shipping mostly against firm orders instead of stockpiling inventory, providing “good visibility” and “limited inventory builds.” (TipRanks)
Cassidy also pointed to a potential trigger in HAMR, or heat-assisted magnetic recording—a tech designed to cram more data onto each disk by applying heat during writing. (TipRanks)
Western Digital announced it will host an Innovation Day in New York on Feb. 3, offering a webcast for investors. (Western Digital)
Western Digital will report its fiscal second-quarter earnings after the market closes on Thursday, Jan. 29, followed by a conference call at 4:30 p.m. ET. (Western Digital)
Western Digital projected adjusted earnings per share of $1.88, give or take 15 cents, and revenue around $2.9 billion, plus or minus $100 million, for the second quarter in its latest update. The company pointed to cloud customer demand as a key driver. CEO Irving Tan described the situation as “a strong demand environment driven by growth of data storage in the cloud.” (Reuters)
But the picture isn’t entirely one-sided. This week, Morgan Stanley grew more cautious on the broader North American IT hardware sector, flagging that budget constraints and rising component costs might weigh on demand and earnings estimates throughout the industry. (Reuters)
Traders also pointed out that Western Digital’s chief legal officer, Cynthia L. Tregillis, offloaded 447 shares on Jan. 21, following a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, according to a filing cited by Investing.com. (Investing.com)
Friday’s session sets the stage for the Jan. 29 earnings, as investors zero in on management’s comments about cloud order trends, pricing, and margins. Then all eyes turn to the Feb. 3 Innovation Day, where any fresh product announcements or long-term outlooks could surface. (Western Digital)
