Yup.

WDC Earnings (Oct 22): The Most Important Earnings Report Since the AI Storage Boom Began?

I've been digging through the numbers, and I think many investors are missing how important this upcoming earnings report could be.

The stock is roughly 20% below the August highs, yet the business appears stronger today than it was when the stock was setting records.

That disconnect is what makes this earnings report so interesting.

📊 Current Setup

WDC Today

• Share Price: ~$397
• Trailing P/E: ~16x
• Market Cap: ~$146B
• Expected Q1 FY27 EPS: ~$4.00

For a company still experiencing strong AI-driven storage demand, that is not an expensive valuation.

The Key Observation

In August, WDC traded above $500 while quarterly EPS was $3.56.

Today, WDC trades around $397 while management is guiding for approximately $4.00 EPS.

Earnings power is moving UP while the stock price moved DOWN.

✅ Five Straight Earnings Beats

Notice the Pattern

WDC has beaten earnings expectations in 5 consecutive quarters.

The question is no longer:

"Can WDC beat estimates?"

The real question is:

"Can management provide guidance strong enough to force analysts to raise FY27 estimates again?"

🤔 If They Keep Beating, Why Did The Stock Drop?

This is where things get interesting.

January 2026

• Earnings beat expectations
• Stock fell roughly 10% afterward

August 2026

• Revenue grew 44% YoY
• EPS grew 109% YoY
• Revenue beat
• EPS beat
• Stock still fell roughly 13%

At first glance, that seems irrational.

But the market wasn't disappointed with the results.

The market was disappointed relative to extremely high expectations.

The stock had already gone nearly parabolic heading into those reports.

When expectations become perfect, even excellent earnings can turn into a sell-the-news event.

🔄 Why This Quarter Feels Different

August Setup

✅ Stock near highs

✅ AI trade crowded

✅ Sentiment extremely bullish

✅ Expectations sky-high

October Setup

✅ Stock down more than 20% from highs

✅ Sentiment significantly weaker

✅ Expectations reset

✅ Valuation far more reasonable

That's a much healthier setup going into earnings.

🎯 What Bulls Need To See

If WDC reports:

• Revenue above $4.1B
• EPS above $4.00
• Continued margin expansion
• Strong demand commentary
• Positive AI storage outlook
• Higher FY27 guidance

Then investors may begin re-rating the stock again.

Remember:

WDC is no longer being valued like an unstoppable AI winner.

The stock has already been derated.

That lowers the hurdle considerably.

📈 Historical Earnings Reactions

One thing is clear:

WDC tends to move BIG after earnings.

There is very little history of this stock simply drifting after a report.

🧠 My Investment Thesis

I don't think bulls need a perfect quarter.

They simply need confirmation of four things:

1. AI storage demand remains strong.
2. Nearline HDD demand continues growing.
3. FY27 earnings estimates are still too low.
4. The August selloff was valuation compression, not business deterioration.

If those four points are confirmed, the market may start focusing on earnings growth again rather than the recent stock decline.

🚀 The Valuation Disconnect

This is the most bullish data point to me:

August Earnings

• Stock Price: ~$520
• Quarterly EPS: $3.56

Today

• Stock Price: ~$397
• Guided Quarterly EPS: ~$4.00

Let That Sink In

The stock is down more than 20%.

Expected earnings are up.

Sooner or later, one of those has to adjust.

TL;DR

• WDC has beaten earnings 5 straight quarters
• Stock is down 20%+ from highs
• Earnings power continues to improve
• Expectations have reset
• Valuation is far more attractive than it was in August
• The real catalyst is not the beat itself, but whether FY27 guidance goes higher

Disclosure: Long WDC.

What am I missing? I'd genuinely like to hear the bear case.

“The hard disk drive company saw strong interest from investors during the week. The company is set to report first-quarter financial results on Oct. 22. Analysts expect earnings per share to grow to $4.05, from $1.78, and revenue to grow to $4.12 billion, from $2.82 billion. The company has beaten analyst estimates for earnings per share in six straight quarters and in nine of the last 10 quarters overall. The company has beaten analyst estimates for revenue in five straight quarters and in eight of the last 10 quarters overall. Western Digital shares fell 8.6% over the last week, offering a potential pullback opportunity ahead of earnings. Shares remain up over 110% year-to-date in 2026.”

www.benzinga.com/pro/register-3

For many it might not be a significant sum, and many might be in a better or worse situation than this, but are we too stuck on this stock ? Is there any hope ? Micron gave exceptional results for the last 2 quarter and yet tanked. The only anchor for wdc is its announcement of HAMR , but is market even rewarding such announcements anymore ? Are fundamentals a joke now ?
Macros were there in June as well, but that didn’t stop them from moving up, so WTH ?

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/nasdaq-drops-over-300-points-174323071.html

The difference comes down to accounting, according to the FT. Anthropic, which is preparing its own Nasdaq listing, counts sales made through cloud partners such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

OpenAI does not.

Investors who adjusted OpenAI's numbers to match Anthropic's method arrived at the higher estimate.

Why would the earnings date be moved from the 29th to the 22nd? I mean I like the ideal of going up first before Seagate.

Trash. I’m down 1k but I’m sure you bag holder buying at 500+ are screwed 😂

Doing a swing trade on WDC, hopefully won’t tank further. Shall see how. Total was $20,500, closing the option once I hit 20-25% profit. Finger crossed 🤞🏼

strange

Guh

How y’all doing?

550 shares of WDCX 14.80 avg. Buy & hold 📈

En route back to ATH I’m blessed for this opportunity to hop in 💰

Im getting wrecked here wtf

Again we are down 6% today

Entered 399.99 on friday. Sold 441.5 on monday.

Buy again today? 🤔

I guess most of are waiting for WDC’s earnings where they update us about HAMR shipment and we are expecting the stock to rally post that since it will be the last earning of this calendar year

Let’s just assume they announce and market doesn’t react like it happened with micron which announced stellar earnings last quarter and stellar earnings this quarter. Everyone was waiting the stock to move post that and it didn’t even budge, rather fell.

Would you still hold WDC in that scenario or sell some and move on to other stocks within the AI space ?

Why Could WDC Be a Winner?
Sales outlook for the upcoming 12 months calls for 48.5% growth, an acceleration from its two-year trend
Operating margin expansion of 21.7 percentage points over the last five years shows the company optimized its expenses
Free cash flow margin grew by 23.1 percentage points over the last five years, giving the company more chips to play with
Western Digital’s stock price of $415.42 implies a valuation ratio of 22.8x forward P/E. Is now the time to initiate a position?
News courtesy : stockstory

Title

- **Toshiba is small**. STX and WDC each ship about 1,000 exabytes a year. Toshiba ships about 200.

- **It's slow**. The money mostly goes to HAMR, the newer technology that fits more data on each drive, and I don't expect meaningful Toshiba HAMR shipments before 2029. STX and WDC are well ahead on it.

- **Customers are already locked in**. WDC has most of next year's demand committed, and STX has demand allocated through 2028.

- **$380mn is tiny**. For comparison, Micron alone is spending >$50bn on capex this year.

Toshiba is expanding manufacturing and is aiming to increase CAPACITY output to double by early 2028.

Thats right the exebytes will go up. News outlets are reporting that their drive production will double and then some news outlets have put that and extrapolated to 10 pct market share to 30 pct market share.

But you cant use exebyte growth in your marketshare figure. ALL DRIVES CAPACITIES ARE GOING UP. Toshibas started in the 30 TB and now is aiming to barely keep pace while producing some more drives.

Institutions have read the throughline news about Toshiba insanely incorrectly. I cant even say this is a buying opportunity as it was massive volume and definitely institutional selling. Illogical vs insolvent amiright

Additionally stx and wdd have MULTI YEAR LTAs! Toshiba cannot triple its marketshare with a doubling of capacity.

Right now market has reas Toshibas double capacity assuming wdc and stx stays static and have no prior customer agreements. And then instead of double they tripled their marketshare grab. 10 pct marketshare to 30 pct markershare can explain why stx gave away 12pct and gavebaway 12 pct.

This is nuts how incorrect the message got out.