Western Digital stock gains after J.P. Morgan initiates at overweight
Shares of Western Digital Corp. are up 2.1% in premarket trading Monday after J.P. Morgan analysts initiated coverage of the stock with an overweight rating. “Although underappreciated in our view, with a diversified storage portfolio (end-markets, applications and products), the company is set to drive stable revenue growth and margin profile with strong free cash flow generation,” wrote the analysts, led by Harlan Sur. The team at J.P. Morgan believes that Western Digital will look for “small tuck-in acquisitions” and devote more of its free cash flow to capital return. The analysts project robust spending on data-center technology in the next few years and see Western Digital as being well positioned, along with Micron Technology Inc. , Broadcom Inc. , and Intel Corp. . Shares of Western Digital are down 12% over the past 12 months, while the S&P 500 has gained 14%.