Will Q4 Results Move Western Digital Stock Higher?

Company Overview - Western Digital Corporation (NASDAQ: WDC) is a leading American data storage company known for manufacturing hard drives, solid-state drives, and NAND flash memory [2] - The company is scheduled to announce its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on July 30, 2025, with analysts expecting adjusted earnings of $1.48 per share on $2.47 billion in revenue [2] Earnings Expectations - The expected earnings indicate a year-over-year increase of 3% in earnings but a significant 34% drop in revenue compared to the same quarter of the previous year, which reported $1.44 per share and $3.76 billion in revenue [2] - This earnings announcement will be the second following the successful completion of Western Digital's planned separation from SanDisk, allowing the company to focus on its core HDD business [2] Historical Performance - Historically, Western Digital's stock has decreased after earnings announcements 53% of the time, with a median one-day loss of 3.1% and a maximum post-earnings decline of 10% [3] - The company currently has a market capitalization of $24 billion, with revenue over the last twelve months at $19 billion, generating $2.5 billion in operating profits and a net income of $1.7 billion [3] Trading Strategies - Event-driven traders can utilize historical performance patterns and the gap between actual earnings results and market expectations to inform their strategies [4] - Traders may choose to position themselves ahead of the earnings release or react after the announcement based on short- and medium-term returns [4] Post-Earnings Return Analysis - Over the last five years, there have been 19 documented earnings data points for Western Digital, with 9 positive and 10 negative one-day returns, resulting in positive returns observed about 47% of the time [5] - This percentage increases to 50% when considering data from the last three years [5] - The median of the 9 positive returns is 4.7%, while the median of the 10 negative returns is -3.1% [5] Correlation of Returns - Understanding the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns following earnings can help traders make informed decisions [6] - If the 1D post-earnings return is positive and shows high correlation with 5D returns, traders can position themselves "long" for the next 5 days [6]