Western Digital Corp. (WDC): Are Hedge Funds Right About This Stock?

Like everyone else, elite investors make mistakes. Some of their top consensus picks, such as Micron and Anadarko Petroleum, have not done well during the last 12 months ending in October due to various reasons. Nevertheless, the data show elite investors’ consensus picks have done well on average. The top 30 S&P 500 stocks among hedge funds at the end of September 2014 yielded an average return of 9.5% during the last four quarters ending in October and sixty three percent of these 30 stocks outperformed the market. S&P 500 Index returned only 5.2% during the same period and less than 49% of its constituents managed to beat this return. Because their consensus picks have done well, we pay attention to what elite funds think before doing extensive research on a stock. In this article, we take a closer look at Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC) from the perspective of those elite funds.

Is Western Digital Corp. going to take off soon? Hedge funds are taking a bullish view. The number of long hedge fund bets moved up by 2 lately. At the end of this article we will also compare WDC to other stocks including Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE:BXP), and Sasol Limited (ADR) (NYSE:SSL) to get a better sense of its popularity.

Now, we’re going to view the fresh action encompassing Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC).

How have hedgies been trading Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 51 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were bullish on this stock, a change of 4% from the previous quarter. With hedgies’ positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were upping their stakes meaningfully (or already accumulated large positions).

According to Insider Monkey’s hedge fund database, Ken Griffin’s Citadel Investment Group has the biggest position in Western Digital Corp. (NASDAQ:WDC), worth close to $457.6 million, corresponding to 0.4% of its total 13F portfolio. The second most bullish fund manager is D E Shaw, which holds a $245.5 million position; 0.4% of its 13F portfolio is allocated to the company. Some other professional money managers with similar optimism include Curtis Macnguyen’s Ivory Capital (Investment Mgmt), Cliff Asness’ AQR Capital Management and Anand Parekh’s Alyeska Investment Group.