Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Shares Gap Up Following Dividend Announcement

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) gapped up prior to trading on Wednesday following a dividend announcement from the company. The stock had previously closed at $101.25, but opened at $108.63. Seagate Technology shares last traded at $110.40, with a volume of 2,573,553 shares.

The newly announced dividend which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 19th will be given a dividend of $0.72 per share. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.66%. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, March 19th. Seagate Technology’s payout ratio is 75.20%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have weighed in on STX shares. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $150.00 target price on shares of Seagate Technology in a research report on Wednesday. Benchmark raised Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 target price for the company in a research report on Wednesday. StockNews.com downgraded Seagate Technology from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, January 14th. Mizuho dropped their target price on Seagate Technology from $130.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Northland Securities reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $160.00 target price (up from $144.00) on shares of Seagate Technology in a research report on Wednesday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Seagate Technology has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $122.56.

Seagate Technology Stock Up 6.8 %

The firm has a market cap of $22.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.25 and a beta of 1.06. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $94.55 and a 200-day moving average price of $100.33.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The data storage provider reported $1.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.30 by $0.28. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 32.19% and a net margin of 11.34%. The business had revenue of $2.17 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.13 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted ($0.34) earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 49.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts expect that Seagate Technology Holdings plc will post 7.18 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $99.53, for a total transaction of $1,990,600.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 642,497 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $63,947,726.41. This represents a 3.02 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Kian Fatt Chong sold 9,182 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $105.50, for a total value of $968,701.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 50,073 shares of company stock valued at $5,106,149 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Seagate Technology in the third quarter valued at $26,000. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in shares of Seagate Technology in the second quarter valued at $27,000. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 2,407.1% in the second quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 351 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 337 shares in the last quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 177.9% in the third quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 403 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $44,000 after acquiring an additional 258 shares in the last quarter. Finally, JFS Wealth Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 232.5% in the third quarter. JFS Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 419 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $46,000 after acquiring an additional 293 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 92.87% of the company’s stock.

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.