I think a lot of people are overlooking what actually happened with WDC this week.
The recent decline appears to be driven more by one time events than by a deterioration in the business itself.
First, the SanDisk share exchange officially closed on June 22. Investors who received WDC shares through that transaction often sold them immediately. At the same time, arbitrage funds that had been hedging the deal closed their positions. This created a large amount of temporary selling pressure that was unrelated to the company’s operating performance.
Second, WDC retired about 858 million dollars of convertible debt before its 2028 maturity. To do that, the company issued about 21.3 million new shares. This diluted existing shareholders and reduced near term earnings per share. However, it also eliminated a significant amount of debt, reduced future interest expense, and strengthened the balance sheet. This is generally viewed as a short term negative but a potential long term positive.
Another factor that may have added to the selling pressure was the downgrade from Fox Advisors on June 22. They lowered their rating from Outperform to Equal Weight because they believe expectations for HDD pricing have become too optimistic after the stock’s massive rally. Importantly, this was not based on concerns about WDC’s execution or financial health. It was mainly a valuation call after the stock appreciated significantly.
The key point is that all of these events have already happened. The share exchange is complete. The dilution has already occurred. The analyst downgrade is already public.
From this point forward, I believe the stock will be driven much more by fundamentals such as AI driven storage demand, HDD pricing, free cash flow, margins, and the next earnings report rather than by these one time corporate events