On June 17, Western Digital rose 3.79% in pre-market trading, trading at $705.01/share with turnover of $15.21 million, extending gains from the previous session as the storage sector continued to rally.

The move follows Morgan Stanley's IT hardware research report in which analyst Erik W. Woodring and his team, after three weeks of intensive Asia market visits including the Taiwan AI Summit, COMPUTEX, and a Western Digital Asia roadshow, concluded that the HDD industry upcycle is elongating significantly. The firm warned that HDD shortages are more severe than previously expected and will persist through at least 2028, with demand growing 40%-50% annually while supply growth lags at 30%-35%. Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Western Digital from $488 to $650 and on Seagate from $767 to $1,035, noting that under an optimistic scenario, both companies could see approximately 10x EPS growth from CY25 to CY28. Multiple other banks have also raised Western Digital targets recently, with JPMorgan adjusting to $650.

Within the Technology Hardware, Storage & Peripherals sector, SanDisk Corp. up 3.75%, Seagate Technology up 2.78%, Super Micro Computer up 2.50%, Dell Technologies up 1.85%, Apple down 0.23%.

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