© Sandy_Plus / Shutterstock.com
Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC | WDC Price Prediction) received a bullish analyst upgrade Tuesday morning when Bernstein upgraded the stock to Outperform from Market Perform and doubled its price target to $340, up from $170. The call directly challenges the algorithmic selling that has hammered storage stocks over the past week, and it arrives as WDC trades near $251.67, well below Bernstein’s new target and the consensus analyst target of $321.
| Ticker | Firm | Old Rating | New Rating | Old Target | New Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WDC | Bernstein | Market Perform | Outperform | $170 | $340 |
The Analyst’s Case
The selloff trigger was Google’s TurboQuant report, an AI memory compression algorithm that sparked fears of demand destruction across memory and storage hardware. Bernstein’s counter is direct: TurboQuant should have “zero impact” on hard disk drive demand and “negligible impact” on NAND demand. The firm argues the selloff creates an attractive entry point and points to Western Digital’s innovation day as evidence of a solid product roadmap. Efficiency gains from compression algorithms have historically expanded consumption rather than reduced it, a dynamic Bernstein appears to be pricing into its thesis.
Why the Move Matters Now
The stock dropped 14.63% over the past week and fell 8.6% on the most recent trading day alone, yet the underlying fundamentals have been accelerating. Western Digital posted non-GAAP diluted EPS of $2.13 in Q2 FY2026 against an estimate of $1.93, with non-GAAP gross margin expanding 770 basis points year-over-year to 46.1%. Free cash flow hit $653 million, up 127.53% year-over-year. The company guided Q3 FY2026 revenue to approximately $3.2 billion, implying roughly 40% year-over-year growth at the midpoint.
The AI demand story remains intact. Cloud revenue represented 89% of total revenue in Q3 FY2025, and CEO Irving Tan stated: “Western Digital’s strong performance this quarter reflects our disciplined execution to meet demand in the AI-driven data economy, and the confidence our customers place in our ability to deliver reliable, high-capacity HDDs at scale.” The company has beaten EPS estimates in each of the last four quarters by margins ranging from 10.47% to 22.73%.
What It Means for Your Portfolio
Bernstein’s $340 target sits above the 52-week high of $319.62, signaling a genuine revaluation call rather than a modest adjustment. The stock’s beta of 1.853 means volatility cuts both ways, and insider net direction remains selling. Still, with 20 analysts rated Buy and zero rated Sell, the Wall Street consensus supports the bull case. The key signal to watch is whether Q3 FY2026 results confirm the margin expansion trajectory Bernstein is banking on.