Stock Traders Purchase High Volume of Put Options on Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX)

Seagate Technology Holdings plc (NASDAQ:STX) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Stock traders bought 16,121 put options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 189% compared to the average daily volume of 5,586 put options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Seagate Technology

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 6.9% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 27,974,117 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $2,414,446,000 after acquiring an additional 1,814,821 shares during the period. Sanders Capital LLC increased its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Sanders Capital LLC now owns 16,530,152 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,426,717,000 after acquiring an additional 162,561 shares during the period. Capital Research Global Investors increased its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 56.5% during the fourth quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 15,621,162 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $1,348,262,000 after acquiring an additional 5,640,443 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its position 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 worth $937,081,000 after acquiring an additional 541,585 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Seagate Technology by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 4,295,225 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $370,013,000 after acquiring an additional 132,713 shares during the period. 92.87% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

STX has been the subject of several research reports. Mizuho dropped their price objective on shares of Seagate Technology from $130.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, January 10th. Wells Fargo & Company decreased their target price on shares of Seagate Technology from $120.00 to $110.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, January 16th. Wedbush restated an “outperform” rating and set a $150.00 target price on shares of Seagate Technology in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Northland Securities restated an “outperform” rating and set a $160.00 target price (up from $144.00) on shares of Seagate Technology in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. Finally, Summit Insights upgraded shares of Seagate Technology from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 22nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have assigned a hold rating and thirteen have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $121.00.

Seagate Technology Price Performance

Seagate Technology stock opened at $88.27 on Friday. Seagate Technology has a 1-year low of $82.31 and a 1-year high of $115.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $18.69 billion, a P/E ratio of 16.14 and a beta of 1.01. The company’s 50-day moving average is $96.32 and its 200 day moving average is $98.76.

Seagate Technology Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 2nd. Investors of record on Wednesday, March 19th will be given a $0.72 dividend. This represents a $2.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.26%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, March 19th. Seagate Technology’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 52.65%.

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.