WDC stock is riding a four-day winning streak, gaining nearly 40% over the period and bucking the broader market weakness.
- WDC stock gained 3% in Tuesday’s overnight session.
- Morgan Stanley hiked its price target on Western Digital and said the company’s new launches remain on track amid projections of strong memory demand for years to come.
- Stocktwits sentiment for WDC climbed higher into the ‘extremely bullish’ zone.
Retail traders are increasingly touting Western Digital Corp. as the next breakout play in the red-hot memory semiconductor sector, betting the stock can quickly climb from around $680 to the psychologically important $1,000 level after Micron and SanDisk dominated investor attention for months.
WDC stock is riding a four-day winning streak, gaining nearly 40% over the period and bucking the broader market weakness with another advance on Tuesday, even as technology and semiconductor stocks sold off. Shares rose a further 3% in overnight trading.
Retail Traders Zero In On WDC
The WDC ticker was trending high up on Stocktwits late in the day, with retail sentiment for the stock climbing multiple points in the ‘extremely bullish’ zone (90/100) and 24-hour message volume surging 120%. The sentiment remained ‘bullish’ for SanDisk and Seagate, and ‘bearish’ for Micron.
Traders believe that while Micron and SanDisk have been the market’s favorite memory chip plays, the memory chip supercycle is lifting all major producers, with Western Digital potentially offering comparatively more upside.
“Money is always rotating between sectors… $SNDK led the move, which immediately put $WDC and $STX on my radar – and both exploded over the next few sessions. The market always leaves clues,” said a trader.
“$WDC not selling until $1,000,” a trader said, while another asked, “$WDC is this the next 1T cap?” a play on Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s recent endorsement of chipmaker Marvell Technology as “the next trillion-dollar company.”
Momentum was also driven by Western Digital’s period sale of shares of its erstwhile unit SanDisk, which became an independent, publicly traded company early last year.
On June 11, Western Digital announced it would sell 1.04 million SanDisk shares it owns to certain institutional investors to repurchase its own stock, with the transaction expected to be completed on June 22. At current prices, that SanDisk lot is worth $2.07 billion.
Morgan Stanley Hikes WDC Target
Traders said the lift is likely coming from Morgan Stanley’s price action earlier in the week. On Monday, the research firm raised its price target on WDC to $650 from $488 (the target is below WDC’s Tuesday closing price of $681.53), while maintaining an ‘Overweight’ rating.
Following meetings with management, Morgan Stanley said that it has gained “even greater conviction” that demand for hard-disk drives is strengthening. Western Digital reportedly indicated that customers are seeking visibility through 2032, per-terabyte pricing looks favorable, and the planned launch of UltraSMR and HAMR products is on track.
Currently, 21 of 25 analysts have a ‘Buy’ or higher rating on the WDC stock, while three rate it ‘Hold,’ and one rates it ‘Strong Sell,’ per Koyfin. Their average price target of $554.13 implies a 19% increase from the stock’s last close.
| Company < | Analyst 'Buy' Rating< | Projected Stock Move< |
| Western Digital | 21/25 | -19% |
| SanDisk | 18/22 | -12% |
| Seagate | 20/24 | -13% |
| Micron | 39/44 | -15% |
Source: Koyfin <
,Memory Stocks: Retail Traders Have Bigger Expectations
Memory-chip stocks have surged over the past year on AI-driven demand for data centers. While companies and analysts still expect strong growth ahead, investors are increasingly debating how much of that optimism is already priced into shares and how much upside remains.
About 71% of the nearly 3,000 users who voted in a Stocktwits poll said they remain bullish on the memory-chip sector and expect the rally to have further room to run.
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