Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) Rating Increased to Buy at Benchmark

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) was upgraded by investment analysts at Benchmark from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a note issued to investors on Wednesday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage presently has a $120.00 target price on the data storage provider’s stock. Benchmark’s price target would suggest a potential upside of 10.68% from the company’s current price.

A number of other analysts have also recently issued reports on STX. Cantor Fitzgerald reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $125.00 price objective on shares of Seagate Technology in a research note on Wednesday, October 23rd. Northland Securities reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $160.00 price objective (up from $144.00) on shares of Seagate Technology in a report on Wednesday. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Seagate Technology from $120.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective on Seagate Technology from $133.00 to $129.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their price target on Seagate Technology from $140.00 to $150.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, six have issued a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $122.56.

Seagate Technology Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of STX stock opened at $108.42 on Wednesday. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $94.55 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $100.33. The stock has a market cap of $22.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.82 and a beta of 1.06. Seagate Technology has a 12 month low of $82.31 and a 12 month high of $115.32.

Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, October 22nd. The data storage provider reported $1.58 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.30 by $0.28. The business had revenue of $2.17 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.13 billion. Seagate Technology had a negative return on equity of 58.59% and a net margin of 14.67%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 49.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($0.34) earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Seagate Technology will post 7.18 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Seagate Technology

In related news, Director Yolanda Lee Conyers sold 750 shares of Seagate Technology stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $101.82, for a total value of $76,365.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 6,555 shares in the company, valued at $667,430.10. The trade was a 10.27 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Kian Fatt Chong sold 9,182 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 8th. The stock was 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 sold 50,073 shares of company stock worth $5,106,149 in the last 90 days. 0.81% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Seagate Technology

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC purchased a new position in Seagate Technology in the third quarter valued at about $26,000. Quarry LP purchased a new position in Seagate Technology in the second quarter worth $27,000. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Seagate Technology by 2,407.1% during the 2nd quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 351 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 337 shares during the last quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. grew its stake in Seagate Technology by 177.9% during the 3rd quarter. Advisors Asset Management Inc. now owns 403 shares of the data storage provider’s stock worth $44,000 after buying an additional 258 shares during the last quarter. Finally, JFS Wealth Advisors LLC increased its position in Seagate Technology by 232.5% during the 3rd quarter. JFS Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 419 shares of the data storage provider’s stock valued at $46,000 after buying an additional 293 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 92.87% of the company’s stock.

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.