Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Price Target Raised to $68.00 at Susquehanna

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) had its target price hoisted by Susquehanna from $65.00 to $68.00 in a report issued on Wednesday,Benzinga reports. Susquehanna currently has a negative rating on the data storage provider’s stock.

A number of other equities research analysts have also issued reports on STX. Citigroup increased their target price on Seagate Technology from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $150.00 price objective on shares of Seagate Technology in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Benchmark upgraded shares of Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $120.00 target price for the company in a research note on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on shares of Seagate Technology from $133.00 to $129.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of Seagate Technology from $125.00 to $135.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Seagate Technology presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $122.56.

Seagate Technology Stock Up 6.8 %

Seagate Technology stock opened at $108.18 on Wednesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $94.55 and a 200-day moving average of $100.33. Seagate Technology has a 52-week low of $82.31 and a 52-week high of $115.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $22.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.25 and a beta of 1.06.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The data storage provider reported $1.58 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.30 by $0.28. The firm had revenue of $2.17 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.13 billion. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 32.19% and a net margin of 11.34%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 49.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.34) EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Seagate Technology will post 7.18 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Seagate Technology Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, March 19th will be issued a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 19th. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.66%. Seagate Technology’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 75.20%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO William D. Mosley sold 20,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $99.53, for a total value of $1,990,600.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 642,497 shares in the company, valued at approximately $63,947,726.41. This trade represents a 3.02 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Kian Fatt Chong sold 9,182 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $105.50, for a total transaction of $968,701.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 50,073 shares of company stock worth $5,106,149 over the last ninety days. 0.81% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in STX. Sanders Capital LLC grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 0.9% during the 3rd quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 16,367,591 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,792,742,000 after buying an additional 150,115 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 6.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,502,674 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $937,081,000 after acquiring an additional 541,585 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 8.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,162,512 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $454,477,000 after acquiring an additional 318,416 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its position in Seagate Technology by 29.5% in the 3rd quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 1,778,811 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $197,844,000 after purchasing an additional 405,232 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Duquesne Family Office LLC lifted its position in Seagate Technology by 22.0% in the 2nd quarter. Duquesne Family Office LLC now owns 1,755,278 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $181,268,000 after purchasing an additional 316,295 shares during the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Seagate Technology

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.