Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) Receives $118.83 Consensus PT from Analysts

Shares of Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) have earned a consensus recommendation of “Hold” from the nineteen brokerages that are currently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and eleven have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $118.83.

STX has been the topic of a number of research reports. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on Seagate Technology from $125.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Benchmark reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Seagate Technology in a research report on Wednesday, October 23rd. StockNews.com raised shares of Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 17th. Citigroup increased their price objective on shares of Seagate Technology from $125.00 to $130.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 23rd. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $150.00 target price on shares of Seagate Technology in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd.

Seagate Technology Trading Up 3.2 %

STX stock opened at $89.15 on Thursday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $96.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $101.20. Seagate Technology has a 12-month low of $79.39 and a 12-month high of $115.32. The firm has a market cap of $18.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 23.28 and a beta of 1.06.

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

Seagate Technology Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, January 6th. Shareholders of record on Sunday, December 15th will be given a $0.72 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, December 13th. This is a boost from Seagate Technology’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.70. This represents a $2.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.23%. Seagate Technology’s payout ratio is 75.20%.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Yolanda Lee Conyers sold 750 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.82, for a total transaction of $76,365.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 6,555 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $667,430.10. This represents a 10.27 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP John Christopher Morris sold 1,131 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.90, for a total value of $126,558.90. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 7,191 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $804,672.90. This trade represents a 13.59 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 55,304 shares of company stock worth $5,656,238. Corporate insiders own 0.81% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in STX. Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 74.2% in the 3rd quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 354,013 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $38,775,000 after acquiring an additional 150,734 shares in the last quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama raised its stake in Seagate Technology by 7.3% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 46,213 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $5,062,000 after purchasing an additional 3,135 shares during the period. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new stake in shares of Seagate Technology in the third quarter valued at $7,112,000. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 29.5% in the third quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 1,778,811 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $197,844,000 after buying an additional 405,232 shares during the period. Finally, Synovus Financial Corp grew its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 36.6% during the third quarter. Synovus Financial Corp now owns 4,054 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $444,000 after buying an additional 1,087 shares in the last quarter. 92.87% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.