What Drove Western Digital’s Share Price on June 28?

Western Digital (WDC) has a market cap of ~$9.1 billion. It rose by 4.6% to close at $44.11 per share on June 28, 2016. The stock’s weekly, monthly, and trailing 12-month (or TTM) price movements were -9.8%, -2%, and -46.2%, respectively, on the same day.

Western Digital is trading 6.7% below its 20-day moving average, 1.6% above its 50-day moving average, and 0.61% below its 100-day moving average.

The Technology Select Sector SPDR ETF (XLK) invests 0.24% of its holdings in Western Digital (WDC). The market caps of Western Digital’s competitors are as follows:

• Seagate (STX): ~$6.1 billion
• Micron (MU): ~$12.5 billion
• NetApp (NTAP): ~$6.0 billion

On June 28, 2016, investment analysts at Vetr upgraded Western Digital’s stock to a “strong-buy” rating from a “buy” rating. UBS recently raised the price target on WDC to $50 following its acquisition of SanDisk (SNDK).

The SanDisk–Western Digital merger is expected to create a company with nearly $20 billion in combined revenue. The combined company would be able to capitalize on the growth of the enterprise storage products market. This market is estimated to reach $76 billion by 2017.

Western Digital plans to gain access to SanDisk’s foundries and intellectual property. SanDisk, in partnership with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), developed a storage-class memory technology. SanDisk claims that this technology can compete with Intel (INTC) and Micron Technology’s breakthrough memory chip 3D XPoint.