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Western Digital jumps as Q1 sales and earnings beat, guidance better than expected, and dividend hiked

A litany of stellar news from the disk drive seller.

Matt Phillips

Western Digital, a maker of the decades-old data storage devices known as hard disk drives that’s become a top stock this year due to the AI boom, had nothing but good news in its Q1 earnings report released after the close of New York trading on Thursday.

Shares rose double digits in after hours trading and have held those gains in early trading on Friday.

Here’s how Western Digital’s results looked:

  • Fiscal Q1 revenue of $2.82 billion vs. $2.73 billion consensus analyst expectations, per FactSet.

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $1.78 vs. the $1.59 analysts predicted.

  • Guidance for current-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.72 to $2.03 (compared to analyst estimates of $1.73) and sales between $2.8 billion and $3 billion (estimate: $2.83 billion).

  • A 25% boost to its quarterly cash dividend up to $0.125 per share.

Western Digital — and rival Seagate Technology Holdings — were some of the hardest-hit stocks of the market’s tariff tantrum back in April due to their Asian manufacturing base.

But after posting surprisingly strong quarterly results over the summer, traders cottoned on to the fact that in an era defined by data, the makers of these relatively affordable data storage devices were going to be deluged with orders for the foreseeable future. Between its last earnings report and the close of trading on Thursday, Western Digital was up more than 90%.

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Nike sinks to lowest level since 2014 after warning of “challenged” sales environment in Q4 report

Did Nike do it?

Investors had a mixed reaction after the global sports apparel company reported its fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday after the bell. Shares initially rose 5% as Nike beat out Wall Street expectations amid a hefty tariff refund bonus. However, the stock then sank to its lowest level since August 2014 in postmarket trading.

Here are the Q4 numbers:

  • Revenue of $11.0 billion (estimate: $10.8 billion).

  • Adjusted earnings per share of $0.20 (estimate: $0.12).

Ahead of this report, Nike warned that results would be flattered by a one-time tariff refund (now estimated at roughly $0.52 per share for the bottom line). That gave the company an extra cushion in snapping its streak of seven quarters of year-over-year profit declines.

Over the past year, the company had been punished by tariffs on imported goods, stagnant consumer spending, and increasing competition from other footwear brands like New Balance, Adidas, and Hoka.

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