Seagate Sets Tone for Western Digital (STX, WDC)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

Invalid Image
Seagate Technology (NASDAQ: STX) just gave us earnings ahead of disk drive and storage rival Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) earnings due on Thursday.  Internal guidance from the sector and higher analysts’ estimates had already helped both companies recover exponentially from 52-week lows.  Seagate turned in earnings of $0.35 EPS (after items of $0.23 from EPS) and $2.66 billion in revenues. Thomson Reuters had estimates at $0.46 EPS on $2.62 billion in revenues.

The company offered guidance of $2.75 – $2.85 billion in revenues and Thomson Reuters has next quarter estimates of $0.55 EPS and $2.75 billion in revenues.

The company said gross margins came in at 24.5% and it guided next quarter margins at 22% to 26%.  It also said it had 46.3 million disk drive unit shipments.

Be advised that this should all be considered incomplete data as the company said it would offer updated fiscal 2010 guidance in its conference call.  But one thing the company said was cautious:

  • “While visibility has improved throughout the calendar year, the ongoing uncertainty in global economic conditions makes it difficult to predict product demand and other related matters, which makes it more likely that Seagate’s actual results could differ materially from current expectations.”

Again, consider this unfinished business until after its guidance for 2010 in the conference call. After the guidance come out from the conference call, this will have likely just set the tone for Western Digital stock for its earnings later in the week.  Seagate closed flat today at $15.55.  Shares seem to be trading around $15.59 or $15.60 in the after-hours and the 52-week trading range is $2.98 to $16.40.

JON C. OGG

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

KMX Vol: 7,330,419
GLW Vol: 22,800,969
INTC Vol: 233,719,006
SMCI Vol: 68,465,534
ENPH Vol: 13,978,376

Top Losing Stocks

ACN Vol: 41,744,333
EPAM Vol: 5,636,587
CTSH Vol: 61,311,400
CTRA Vol: 73,319,495
KR Vol: 26,704,230