Seagate Technology PLC

Alphabet is removing the cost barrier to Google Vids, letting anyone with a Google account use its AI video generator for free through the Gemini Omni 1.1 Flash model. Every video created, stored, and delivered adds to the growing volume of data that Western Digital and Seagate are positioned to handle, and all AI-generated videos carry a SynthID watermark. Western Digital's cloud revenue represented 89% of its latest quarter, with total exabytes shipped up 22% year-over-year on nearline products, and its CEO says the company is sold out for calendar year 2026; Seagate has nearly all nearline capacity committed into calendar 2028 and targets long-term revenue growth of at least 20%. Investors have already driven Western Digital up roughly 330% and Seagate about 305% over the past year, well ahead of the industry's 45% revenue growth, and Google trades at a forward P/E of 21.8x versus the S&P 500's 19.2x, with consensus projecting about 9.3% earnings growth in 2026 and roughly 27.6% in 2027. Hedge fund holdings in Google rose from 265 at the end of Q1 2026 to 275 at the end of Q2 2026.

Zacks Investment Research named Seagate Technology Holdings plc, Western Digital Corporation, Micron Technology, Inc. and Sandisk Corporation as four memory semiconductor stocks to watch in October 2026, citing AI-driven demand for high-bandwidth memory, DDR5 DRAM and enterprise SSDs alongside constrained supply. Seagate, rated Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) with a Growth Score of A, is expected to post a 132% year-over-year revenue increase and a 55% EPS increase in fiscal 2026, with its consensus estimate unchanged over the past 30 days. Western Digital, rated Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) with a Growth Score of A, is projected to grow fiscal 2026 EPS by approximately 96%, also unchanged over the past 30 days. Micron, rated Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) with a Growth Score of A, reported revenues that soared 345.7% year over year to $41.46 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $25.11 per share that grew 12 times year over year, while its fiscal 2026 EPS consensus implies an approximately 792% year-over-year increase and has been revised upward over the past 30 days. Sandisk, rated Zacks Rank #3 with a Growth Score of A, raised its 2026 datacenter exabyte growth view to the mid-70% range and sees fiscal 2026 revenues and EPS rising approximately 143% and 201%, respectively, with its earnings consensus revised upward over the past 30 days.

Tiger Global Management, the New York investment firm run by Chase Coleman III, opened nine new positions during the quarter, including a $662.78 million stake in AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems Inc. The fund bought 2,999,000 Cerebras shares, making the company 2.76% of its 13F portfolio, and also picked up 674,727 shares of Advanced Micro Devices worth roughly $391.96 million, or 1.63% of the portfolio, plus 285,100 shares of Seagate Technology worth about $275.12 million, or 1.15%. Cerebras makes wafer-scale processors and sells AI computing capacity through its cloud services, with its technology aimed particularly at AI inference. Bulls argue its Wafer-Scale Engine, which places computing and fast SRAM memory across one very large processor, offers faster token generation and lower latency for coding, reasoning and AI-agent workloads, though the company is not necessarily trying to replace Nvidia across the AI market. Cerebras carries a $25.4 billion backlog, but the company disclosed that only about 22% of its RPO is expected to be recognized during the first 24 months, through June 2028.

Seagate Technology received a buy rating and a $899.28 price target from 24/7 Wall St., implying 14.82% upside over the next 12 months at a 90% confidence level. The call follows a blowout fiscal Q4 report on July 28, 2026, in which Seagate posted revenue of $3.63 billion, up 48.49% year over year, and non-GAAP EPS of $5.71, beating expectations by 12.11%, while full-year FY26 free cash flow hit a record $3.105 billion, up 279.58%. Management now guides to annual revenue growth of a minimum of 20% over the next few years, up from prior mid-teens targets, and CEO Dave Mosley said nearline capacity is almost fully allocated through calendar 2027. Mosaic 4 HAMR drives deliver up to 44 terabytes per drive, and Mosaic 5 is targeting 50 terabytes with qualification shipments in late 2027. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 23, roughly in line with Western Digital's 21, while Micron's forward P/E of 6 highlights how much Seagate has already re-rated; the bear case lands at $685.64 on hyperscaler concentration risk.

Fidelity Dividend Growth Fund named Seagate Technology Holdings plc as a notable performance contributor in its second-quarter 2026 investor letter, citing surging demand for hard-disk drives used in AI-capable data centers. The fund said Seagate shares gained about 147% over the past three months, and that the company's most recent quarterly filing in April showed revenue, earnings and profitability all exceeding consensus expectations while it raised financial guidance. Seagate, one of the world's largest producers of digital storage and, alongside Western Digital, one of two dominant makers of hard-disk drives, closed at $805.55 per share on September 14, 2026, down 10.86% over the past month but up 281.54% over the past year, with a market capitalization of $183.18 billion and a 52-week range of $206.26 to $1,145.00. The fund itself returned 17.05% in the quarter, outperforming the S&P 500 Index, which gained 15.20%, as technology stocks rose 31.79% on increased artificial intelligence spending. According to the letter, 131 hedge fund portfolios held Seagate at the end of the second quarter, compared with 93 in the previous quarter.

Seagate Technology is already shipping its HAMR-based Mozaic drives to 75% of the world's leading cloud customers, while Western Digital's competing 44TB Hammer drive will not reach hyperscalers until the first half of calendar year 2027. Seagate posted fiscal Q4 revenue of $3.63 billion, up 48.5% year over year, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $5.71 beating the $5.0932 consensus, and its Mozaic 4 drives, capable of up to 44 terabytes per drive, were shipping for revenue to those cloud customers by March. Western Digital, now a pure-play hard disk drive company after the Sandisk separation, reported revenue of $3.75 billion, up 43.8% year over year, earnings per share of $3.56, and gross margin of 54.4%, with growth driven by its 40TB ePMR drives. Both companies guided fiscal Q1 2027 revenue to roughly $4.10 billion. Seagate expanded gross margin to 52.3% from 37.4% year over year and posted record free cash flow of $3.1 billion for the year, though its shares are up 325.27% over the past year, while Western Digital trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 17 with a cleaner balance sheet. The next test for Seagate is whether it can push 70% of nearline exabytes onto HAMR by fiscal 2027 without yield issues, while Western Digital's 44TB Hammer qualification with hyperscalers in early 2027 is critical.

Vertiv and Seagate Technology delivered two of the loudest post-earnings statements in AI infrastructure, with Vertiv posting Q2 2026 revenue of $3.27B, up 24.1% YoY, on organic growth of 18% and adjusted operating margin expanding 410 basis points to 22.6%. CEO Giordano Albertazzi said the momentum is strong, broad-based and accelerating, and backlog coverage plus new capacity in Malaysia and the Americas support a raised full-year target of roughly $14 billion in sales. Seagate's fiscal Q4 was arguably louder, with revenue of $3.63B, up 48.5% YoY, non-GAAP EPS of $5.71 against a $5.09 consensus, and non-GAAP gross margin of 52.7%, as CEO Dave Mosley credited robust cloud data center demand and pointed to the HAMR-based Mozaic roadmap. Vertiv announced a planned acquisition of UtilityInnovation Group to accelerate time to power for AI data centers, on top of ThermoKey and Strategic Thermal Labs earlier in the year, while Seagate said nearline capacity is almost fully allocated through calendar 2027 and growth will come from areal density rather than added factory capacity. Vertiv shares fell 9.63% on September 9 after a 109.52% one-year run, while Seagate is up 222.51% year to date, with its 2027 EPS consensus of $35.78 and 20 upward revisions in 30 days making it the cleaner near-term earnings story.

Seagate Technology Holdings has surged 200.8% year to date, more than double the Zacks Computer-Integrated Systems industry's 103.4% gain, driven by AI infrastructure demand. The company's fiscal 2026 revenue rose 34% to $12.2 billion, with record free cash flow of $3.1 billion and non-GAAP EPS more than doubling to $5.71. Management guides fiscal first-quarter revenue of $4.1 billion, up 56% year over year, and expects continued growth from its HAMR-based Mozaic platform. Despite trading at 20.96 forward earnings versus the industry's 11.64, Zacks ranks STX a Strong Buy, citing strong demand visibility and improving margins.

Seagate Technology Holdings PLC reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings of $5.71 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $5.10 and exceeding the high end of management's guidance, with revenues of $3.6 billion surpassing estimates by 3.9%. The company's performance was driven by robust cloud spending and AI-driven demand for storage solutions, leading to a 48% year-over-year revenue increase and a record non-GAAP gross margin of 52.7%. Seagate expects continued momentum in fiscal Q1 2027, guiding revenues of $4.1 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $7.3 per share. Since the earnings release, the consensus estimate has shifted upward by 30.61%, and the stock has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

Hedge funds and mutual funds took sharply different approaches to individual AI stocks during the second quarter, according to Goldman Sachs. Hedge funds bought Microsoft and Amazon while mutual funds reduced positions in both, and hedge funds cut exposure to Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, Broadcom, Lam Research, Marvell Technology, Cisco Systems, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Applied Materials. Mutual funds bought Advanced Micro Devices, Micron Technology and Sandisk while hedge funds reduced exposure to those stocks. Goldman identified 12 AI infrastructure stocks purchased by both groups, including American Electric Power, Bloom Energy, CoreWeave, Flex, NiSource, Seagate Technology, Talen Energy and Xcel Energy. The analysis covers 991 hedge funds with $5.4 trillion of gross equity positions and 504 large-cap active mutual funds with $4.6 trillion in equity assets.

Seagate Technology shares rose nearly 2.4% to $996.5 Monday morning as investors continued hunting for AI infrastructure winners beyond chips. The company delivered a powerful fiscal fourth quarter, generating $3.6 billion in revenue, a 52.7% non-GAAP gross margin and $5.71 in adjusted earnings per share. Operating cash flow reached $1.3 billion and free cash flow hit $1.1 billion, while Seagate reduced debt by $302 million and returned another $283 million through dividends and buybacks. For fiscal 2026, Seagate produced $3.1 billion in free cash flow and retired $1.4 billion of debt. The GF Value chart shows Seagate trading at $996.49 compared with a GF Value of $184.26, putting the stock approximately 440.81% above its estimated fair value.

AI infrastructure stocks edged higher in pre-market trading on Monday after Anthropic's second quarter revenue surged to $11.5B, nearly two-and-a-half times the first quarter's $4.7B figure. The Dario Amodei-led firm also recorded positive adjusted operating income for the first time. Memory and storage companies rose, with Micron Technology up 3%, Seagate Technology up 2.5%, Sandisk up 3.5%, Western Digital up 2.6%, and Nasdaq newcomer SK Hynix up 3%. Networking stocks were mostly higher, with Lumentum Holdings, Ciena, and Corning all up 1.5%, while Applied Optoelectronics and Coherent both increased 1.7%. Chipmakers were modestly higher, with Intel and Nvidia both up about 0.7%, after Nvidia slashed its financial backing for a massive OpenAI data center project in Ohio from $250B to less than $120B. The largest hyperscalers were mixed, with Oracle down 1.1%, Microsoft down 0.7%, Google up 0.2%, and Amazon up 1.4%.

Shares of Entegris, Penguin Solutions, Seagate, Applied Materials, and KLA Corporation soared in afternoon trading after upbeat earnings and bullish forecasts from key AI industry players signaled robust demand for artificial intelligence technology. Super Micro Computer jumped after its earnings per share came in 84% higher than expected and it provided a revenue forecast that topped estimates, while CoreWeave rallied after its sales forecast also exceeded expectations. The positive sentiment spread globally, with Asian markets gaining as traders bought AI- and semiconductor-related shares, supported by a reported 155% year-over-year surge in South Korea's semiconductor exports for early August. Entegris jumped 6.1%, Penguin Solutions rose 4.7%, Seagate climbed 7.2%, Applied Materials gained 5%, and KLA Corporation advanced 4.2%.

Seagate Technology Holdings plc has seen its shares surge 926% over the past five years as AI-driven demand for data-center storage accelerates. For the fiscal fourth quarter of 2026, Seagate's revenues were $3.63 billion, up around 49% year over year, while fiscal year 2026 revenues jumped about 34% to $12.2 billion. Gross margin in the fiscal fourth quarter increased sharply to 52.3% from 37.4% a year earlier, and for the full fiscal year it reached 45.6% from 35.2%. The company generated $3.1 billion in free cash flow and trimmed its debt burden by $1.4 billion to $3.6 billion. Analysts expect earnings per share of $34.99, up 168.7% year over year, and the average short-term price target of $1,141.82 represents a 30% upside from the last closing price of $878.21.

Sandisk Corp. surged nearly 14% after unveiling a long-term financial framework that points to sharply higher margins and stronger cash generation. At its Investor Day, the data storage and flash-memory company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high teens rate from fiscal 2028 through fiscal 2030. Sandisk is also targeting adjusted gross margins of about 80% and adjusted operating margins near 75% over that period. The company expects an adjusted free-cash-flow margin of roughly 50% after taxes, capital spending and working-capital needs, and management said it intends to return 100% of excess cash to shareholders after investing in the business. The outlook helped lift other storage and memory names as well, with Western Digital, SK Hynix, Micron and Seagate all gaining.

Seagate Technology shares have surged 445.36% over the past year on hyperscaler demand for mass-capacity storage, and 24/7 Wall St. rates the stock a buy with a price target of $916.25, implying 11.67% upside from the current $820.52. The firm's confidence is anchored in four consecutive quarterly EPS beats, accelerating cloud demand tied to AI infrastructure, and a HAMR technology roadmap now qualified with every major U.S. hyperscaler. Seagate closed fiscal 2026 with fourth-quarter revenue of $3.629 billion, up 48.5% year over year, and non-GAAP EPS of $5.71, beating consensus by 12.11%, while full-year free cash flow hit a record $3.105 billion, up 279.58%. CEO Dave Mosley said nearline capacity is fully allocated through calendar year 2026, with pricing negotiations already underway for 2027 and 2028, and first-quarter fiscal 2027 guidance calls for revenue of $4.10 billion and EPS of $7.30. Wall Street's average target is $1,115.87 with 22 buy ratings against one sell, and the bull-case scenario gets Seagate to $1,217.52, a 48.38% gain, though the trailing P/E of 58 leaves no margin for error if hyperscaler capex cools.

Sands Capital's Technology Innovators Fund highlighted Seagate Technology as a notable performance contributor in its second-quarter 2026 investor letter. The fund noted that improving supply-demand conditions continue to support stronger pricing expectations for hard disk drives, with Seagate reporting first-quarter revenue up 44 percent year over year and non-GAAP gross margin reaching a record 47 percent. Management now expects pricing to grow at a multiyear mid-teens rate, following 12 percent year-over-year pricing growth in the quarter. The fund believes the combination of rising demand, limited supply response, and improving pricing discipline will support durable earnings growth.

Zacks Investment Research has identified five growth stocks for investors to buy in August, citing strong earnings and revenue growth prospects tied to artificial intelligence and data center demand. The stocks are Micron Technology, Seagate Technology Holdings, Comfort Systems USA, Vertiv Holdings, and Celestica, each carrying a Zacks Rank of 1 and a Growth Score of A. Micron is expected to see revenue and earnings growth of 91.4% and more than 100% for the year ending August 2027, driven by demand for memory chips used in AI systems. Seagate projects revenue and earnings growth of 52.8% and more than 100% for the year ending June 2027, benefiting from AI workloads that require persistent data storage. Comfort Systems guided for 2026 same-store revenue growth in the mid- to high-30% range, with a backlog of $14.06 billion as of June 30, 2026, up 73.2% year over year, fueled by data center construction. Vertiv expects revenue and earnings growth of 36.6% and 58.1% for the current year, supported by AI infrastructure demand and partnerships with NVIDIA. Celestica anticipates revenue and earnings growth of 63.4% and 78.5% for the current year, driven by AI infrastructure spending and expansion of high-bandwidth networking platforms.

Total semiconductor billings surged 134% year-over-year to 151.9 billion dollars in June, according to Wells Fargo analysts citing Semiconductor Industry Association data. Memory chips led the surge, with DRAM billings increasing 373% year-over-year to 56.8 billion dollars and NAND Flash billings up 377% to about 30.7 billion dollars. Excluding memory, semiconductor billings rose 38% year-over-year to 63.5 billion dollars, while analog billings grew 22% to 8.42 billion dollars. The analysts, led by Aaron Rakers, noted that DRAM bits shipped grew 26% year-over-year in June, and NAND bits shipped increased 2%.

A growing number of companies are raising their profit outlooks despite macroeconomic uncertainty. More S&P 500 firms are lifting guidance than cutting it, and Wall Street analysts have raised third-quarter earnings estimates for the index for the second consecutive quarter. Argus research analyst Christine Dooley views consistent guidance raises as a catalyst for market-beating returns. Among the companies that have raised guidance in the second quarter so far are Cheesecake Factory, Ford, General Motors, Hasbro, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Charles Schwab, PayPal, US Bancorp, ASML, Seagate Technology, Supermicro Computer, Bristol Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth Group, 3M, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, United Airlines, and United Parcel Service.

Memory and storage stocks rallied sharply Tuesday, with SanDisk up 8%, Micron Technology up 6%, and SK Hynix up 4%, after Wall Street analysts raised price targets and the companies unveiled a new industry standard for High Bandwidth Flash. SanDisk and SK Hynix jointly released the first HBF standard through the Open Compute Project, a blueprint that could expand the addressable market for AI memory across chip vendors. RBC Capital initiated SK Hynix at Outperform with a $200 target, Stifel rates it Buy with a $240 target, and William Blair started coverage at Outperform, citing tight supply that has roughly tripled AI memory prices. The fundamentals support the bullish tone: SanDisk's datacenter revenue surged 645% year over year to $1.47 billion, while Micron's most recent quarter delivered revenue of $41.46 billion, up 345.7% year over year, with non-GAAP gross margin of 84.9%. The rally also lifted Western Digital by 3%, Seagate Technology by 1%, and the Roundhill Memory ETF by 5%, as Seagate posted record fiscal 2026 free cash flow of $3.1 billion and guided first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue to $4.1 billion.

Seagate Technology's strong fourth-quarter earnings report has boosted shares of rival Western Digital ahead of Western Digital's own earnings announcement on August 5. Seagate reported a 48% year-over-year revenue surge driven by cloud data centers and hyperscalers purchasing high-capacity nearline drives for AI workloads, dispelling concerns about a slowdown in AI infrastructure spending. Western Digital's stock rose 15% between July 28 and July 30, and the company is forecasting fourth-quarter revenue of $3.65 billion, a 36.5% year-over-year gain, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $3.25. Despite the recent rally, Western Digital shares remain well off their 52-week high of $799.87, and strong free cash flow of nearly $1 billion in the fiscal third quarter supports potential capital returns. However, the primary risk is that much of the optimism may already be priced in, and if results merely meet expectations, profit-taking could follow.

Shares of data-storage company Seagate Technology moved higher following better-than-expected fourth-quarter results. Revenue rose 49% year-over-year to $3.63 billion, gross margin expanded to 52.7%, and earnings per share more than doubled to $5.71, exceeding analyst estimates of $5.10. Data-center revenue grew 57% to $2.9 billion, accounting for about 80% of total revenue, driven by robust cloud demand. For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Seagate guided revenue between $4 billion and $4.2 billion and earnings per share of $7.10 to $7.50, both above consensus. The company highlighted its Mozaic platform and HAMR technology as key growth drivers, with the next-generation Mozaic 5 expected to launch in late 2027 or early 2028.

Memory stocks rallied sharply, with SanDisk surging 22% and Micron climbing 15%, after Samsung warned of tightening memory supplies that could boost pricing power for manufacturers. Western Digital jumped 18%, Seagate gained 16%, and SK Hynix rose 16%, while the Roundhill Memory ETF advanced 13%, confirming the rally spans the entire memory and storage ecosystem. The gains were also supported by improving sentiment toward semiconductor demand and a broader rebound in large-cap technology stocks, including strong earnings from Microsoft. Analysts caution that memory stocks are among the most cyclical semiconductor investments, and today's sharp rally risks pushing valuations ahead of earnings growth.

SanDisk shares fell 7% to $1,019 and Micron Technology dropped 6% to $775 as a memory-sector selloff intensified on Wednesday. The rout was triggered by SK Hynix's second-quarter report, which delivered a record operating profit up 557% year over year and a record 76% operating margin but missed expectations, and more importantly guided for a 50% increase in 2026 capital expenditure to at least $31 billion, stoking fears of an overheating AI capex cycle. SanDisk has collapsed 36% over five days, while the Roundhill Memory ETF fell 4% to $46 and is down 20% over the same period. Bucking the trend, Seagate Technology gained 2% to $759 after beating fourth-quarter earnings estimates, highlighting a stark divergence between HDD-focused storage names and NAND/DRAM memory names. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index is down 19% in July, on pace for its worst month since 2008, with all members below their 50-day moving averages.

Several companies made notable premarket moves following their latest quarterly reports. Biogen rose 0.7% after beating revenue consensus and raising its full-year adjusted EPS guidance. GE HealthCare Technologies surged 12% on second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.13, topping the FactSet consensus of $1.04, and reaffirmed its 2026 earnings guidance. Ford Motor jumped 6% after beating adjusted earnings expectations and hiking its 2026 earnings outlook, though automotive revenue slightly missed LSEG estimates. Vertiv tumbled 13% as its 17.8% organic revenue growth fell well short of the 23.6% FactSet consensus. Generac gained 5.5% on adjusted earnings of $2.91 per share, beating the $2.01 forecast, and reiterated its revenue growth guidance. Procter & Gamble dropped over 3% after fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $21.2 billion missed the $21.38 billion LSEG estimate, and net income fell to $3.04 billion from $3.62 billion a year ago. Deutsche Bank rose more than 2% after posting a record second-quarter after-tax profit of 1.9 billion euros. CoStar tumbled 15% on a revenue miss and current-quarter guidance of $935 million to $945 million, below the $967.5 million consensus. Rocky Brands surged 16% as adjusted earnings per share more than tripled year-over-year, aided by tariff refunds and strong double-digit growth in several brands. KLA Corp slid 7% after issuing disappointing guidance, while Seagate Technology rose 6% on an outlook that trounced expectations, and Western Digital gained 4% in sympathy. Manhattan Associates climbed 11% after beating estimates and raising full-year forecasts. Visa lost 2% as its 2026 guidance underwhelmed, and it announced plans to cut about 2,600 jobs. Teradyne surged 9% on beats across second-quarter results and third-quarter forecasts. NXP Semiconductors lost 1.7% as its third-quarter adjusted earnings guidance bracketed the LSEG estimate. Skyworks Solutions slumped 9% after adjusted margin of 44.9% narrowly missed the 45.0% expectation.