Seagate Technology (STX)

[chmcnfunds]

Limited out at $22.25 -- jumped up before could change my ask. Look to re-enter.

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Out of STX. Sold @ $23.80 yesterday. Plan to re-enter.

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Reduxio Experiences Record Growth With a 200 Percent Increase in Customers, New Resellers, Key Hires and Global Offices

Superior Customer Support and "To The Second" Data Recovery Driving Forces Behind Customer Acquisition and Retention

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwired) -- 06/02/16 --

Reduxio today announced record growth across all aspects of its business, including a 200 percent increase in new customers, a new headquarters location, four new sales offices, a significant number of value-added resellers (VARs) and key hires in the executive and sales teams. This growth reflects the adoption its experiencing by mid-market companies across a range of industries, including technology, manufacturing, education, research and public service, for its enterprise storage system that removes typical cost barriers with a simple-to-manage hybrid-flash system.

"When we started Reduxio, we started with a clean sheet of paper to deliver what today's enterprise customers required from their storage systems," said Mark Weiner
, CEO and co-founder of Reduxio. "Our new architecture eliminates many of the frustrations and productivity traps that users of legacy systems have settled for. In a very short period of time, we have seen enthusiastic validation and adoption of our solution across a wide range of industries and companies. One hundred percent of our customers are reference-able, which is unheard of for an early stage IT infrastructure company."

Since unveiling its HX550 at VMworld 2015, Reduxio's been busy working with mid-market companies in industries such as financial management (Scale Venture Partners); technology (Catbird, Array Networks and Hightail); education (Eldorado County Education Office of Education); research (La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology); public service (California Public Utilities Commission); and manufacturing (Nissin Foods and Ventura Coastal).

"The technology -- particularly the speed -- and the level of service from Reduxio has been incredible," said Shane Thorson
, principal architect at Catbird. "For example, one weekend our cooling had gone out and none of our other alarms had gone off, and the Reduxio guys called us on the phone and said 'you might want to check your system as the heat in the box is starting to rise very rapidly.' The support has been fantastic."

In addition to new customers, Reduxio also expanded its presence in the U.S. and internationally with new sales team offices and hires, including a new headquarters in San Francisco. Expanding its strong leadership team, in March Reduxio announced the hire of successful startup veteran Mike Grandinetti
as chief marketing and corporate strategy officer, based in the new Boston office.

Other recently opened new offices and key hires include:

Boston: Dmitry Gorbatov
, senior systems engineer
Atlanta: Wade O'Harrow
, regional sales manager, southeast and Fred Nix
, presales engineer
New York: Ken Smallwood
, sr. systems engineer and Atul Chowdary
, sales manager
Holland: Bert van der Zande
, sales manager
Israel: Effie Glass
, sales representative



Reduxio also began working with 15 new VAR's in since January 2016 in regions around the world. These include in the U.S.: Groupware, Adaptive Integration, Business Technology Architects, StreamNetworks and Axcelerate Networks; Israel: Consist and Meprolight; and Netherlands: Storedata, IT Force, Poland and V-Wave, Switzerland.

To learn more about Reduxio and to request a demo, click here: http://innovate.reduxio.com/get-demo

About Reduxio:

Reduxio's groundbreaking technology liberates companies' data no matter where it lives -- on disk, SDD or flash. The company's enterprise hybrid storage array gives customers the freedom to do with their data what they need to do, when they need to, safely, reliably and with blinding speed. Reduxio delivers all-flash performance at the cost of disk-based systems, providing the first-ever built-in data protection that allows to-the-second recovery without upfront administration. Reduxio is backed by Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX), a world leader in storage solutions, Jerusalem Venture Partners (JVP), Carmel Ventures and Intel. Learn more at www.Reduxio.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Source: Reduxio

This article appears in: News Headlines

Referenced Stocks: STX

Read more: http://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/reduxio-experiences-record-growth-with-a-200-percent-increase-in-customers-new-resellers-key-hires-20160602-00494#ixzz4AQYSMkFc
____________________________________________

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Surprised that according to ShortAnalytics shorts have increased over the last several days. <
http://shortanalytics.com/getshortchart.php?tsymbol=stx >

Anticipating that STX has now moved into over-bought?



STX

[chmcnfunds]

Coming fast -- really running strong to close out the day. Now at HOD.

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Not a beast, but slow and steady. Should stay green today, making 10 of 11 days green. Seems to disregard the overall market:



I think we're good.

STX

[doebop]

25 will be back soon

[chmcnfunds]

Showing a lot of strength again the shorts today. now HOD:



STX

[chmcnfunds]

Full statement:

______________________________________________________
May 25, 2016, 11:42 A.M. ET

Western: Barclays Ups to Buy; Flash Threat Less Dire Than Believed

By Tiernan Ray

Shares of storage vendor Western Digital (WDC) are up $2.17, or 5%, at $44.445, after Barclays’s Mark Moskowitz raised his rating on the stock this morning to Overweight from Equal Weight, writing that the shares have “adequately de-risked for three reasons,” namely the understanding of flash technology replacing disks, clarity about Western’s own production of flash, and investor comfort with Western’s stepped-up spending.

Moskowitz, raising his price target to $60 from $57, writes the stock, along with that of Seagate Technology (STX), is “washed out,” and given his target on Western is 42% from the current price, it’s a good time to buy because “It is our view that the incremental buyer historically needs to see 25% or more upside potential to build an Overweight position in an HDD stock.” (He has an equal-weight rating on Seagate, and a $25 price target.)

Moskowitz notes that disk drives will not be completely replaced by flash:

We do not expect HDDs to be completely displaced by SSDs over the next decade, but the rate of displacement in PC HDDs will make it hard for HDD vendors to grow. We expect HDDs serving PCs to exhibit increasing rate of displacement by SSDs, but there could be a slower displacement rate in the enterprise data center (due to higher price per gigabyte) – which is where the sturdier HDD profit pool resides. As it relates to relative pricing, enterprise HDD $/GB is $0.04, versus $0.40- 0.45 for SSD. With this gap in mind, we estimate SSDs to support approximately 60- 65% of PC units in 7-10 years, versus our estimate of 36% in C2017, and according to Gartner, 22% in C2015. Meanwhile, we estimate SSD units to support only 30-35% of units supporting servers and storage systems in the data center, versus our estimate of 22% in C2017, and according to Gartner, 17% in C2015. In our view, this overall framework implies HDDs still have an important long-term role in storage.

Moskowitz illustrates those trends of disk replacement with some graphs; here’s one (click on the image to see it larger):

(chart omitted)

Barclays Models flash versus hard-drive trends, May 25th, 2016.

On the other hand, Moskowitz also thinks that SanDisk, the flash company Western bought this year, is “on track” with its move to the next level of technology in NAND chips, something that’s been a perennial worry about the company:

Our research indicates that SanDisk is on track with its 3D NAND transition and should have a broad portfolio of consumer SSDs shipping by late C2016 and enterprise SSDs in 1H C2017. In such a case, SanDisk would be able to keep pace with the lead pack for flash solutions based on 3D NAND. Reason being, the technology is complex, and with manufacturing yields currently below optimal levels (>80%) across the industry, bits shipped on 3D NAND are not likely to reach critical mass (> 50%) for another 12-18 months. All of this means SanDisk has ample time to catch up. In our view, a successful SanDisk transition to 3D NAND sets the foundation for WD to deliver revenue growth at- or above-peer, which we think WD’s stock is not factoring.

Moskowitz also notes that a recent “reset” of industry expectations by Western was not as bad as feared:

The Mar-Q earnings season was a difficult one. We had braced for tough sledding after cutting most of our sector forecasts on March 18. The silver lining was that with HDDs the reset outlook was not as bad as feared. The projected quarterly TAM of approximately 95M units for the Jun-Q is not as severe as some investors or industry participants had anticipated. The run rate is not great, though, given the HDD industry had been built to serve north of 160M units per quarter just a few years ago. In any event, we think that if the Jun-Q can establish a bottom in quarterly shipments, then investor sentiment can start to improve. We think the reasonable duopoly is relatively intact, which attracted investors to the HDD stocks in 2012 to early 2015. Cyclical (weak PC and enterprise systems demand) and structural (SSD displacement risk) have since been discounted into the stock valuations, helping de-risk the stocks.
___________________________________________

http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2016/05/25/western-barclays-ups-to-buy-flash-threat-less-dire-than-believed/

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Up based on technicals or the news? or both? In any case has been a nice week:
__________________________________________________
Western Digital rallies on second upgrade in two days; Seagate also up
May 25 2016, 10:54 ET | About: Western Dig... (WDC) |
By: Eric Jhonsa, SA Eye on Tech, SA News Editor

Barclays' Mark Moskowitz has upgraded Western Digital (WDC +5.8%) to Overweight, and upped his target by $3 to $60. He argues the valuation is too low, that hard drives still have a future, and that multiples can grow as Western brings 3D NAND products to market (via just-acquired SanDisk) and lowers its debt load.The call comes a day after Cowen's Karl Ackerman upgraded to Outperform, while asserting the guidance Western is due to provide on Thursday "should help eliminate uncertainty" related to the SanDisk acquisition. He also cited low expectations, and declared SanDisk will help Western better serve enterprise and hyperscale (cloud data center) clients.Seagate (STX +3.4%) is following Western higher. Both companies were hammered in late April in response to weak earnings and guidance. Western is up 13% on the week.
____________________________________________________



STX

[chmcnfunds]

$20.50 now a weak support which could strengthen if the pre-market holds:



STX

[chmcnfunds]

Award Notice - Seagate 2TB Hard Drives

05/19/2016 | 06:39am EDT
Document Type: Award Notice

Posted Date: 18-MAY-16

Location: Department of the Navy, Naval Sea Systems Command, NSWC Carderock Division

Classification Code: 70 - General purpose information technology equipment

Subject: Seagate 2TB Hard Drives

Solicitation Number: N00167-16-T-0054
_______________________________________________
http://www.4-traders.com/news/Award-Notice-Seagate-2TB-Hard-Drives--22384704/

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Sudden surge due to rumor on Twitter?

___________________________________________
Open Outcrier ?@OpenOutcrier 21m21 minutes ago
$STX Hearing some Samsung T/O chatter, unconfirmed
___________________________________________

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Hope market changes today. Needed a good market to keep STX momentum going. Seems like it doesn't run green more than 5 days before a bit of downturn:



STX

[chmcnfunds]

Seems like it. $12.50 has been a stubborn resistance so far today. The Fed minutes seem to have temporarily killed some momentum. Maybe tomorrow it will push through?

STX

[pack10]

I think it has bottomed. Great time to add

[chmcnfunds]

Maybe, maybe bottomed out:

Technical analysis (as of: 2016-05-13 10:02:35 AM)
Overall:

Stoxline posted a BUY today, upgraded from lower rating. This stock seems to be ready for a new bullish move. If you bought, continue to hold stock until SELL signal. You are relatively safe to buy now, a new upward move is expected.

Target:
Six months: 33.24 One year: 40.49
Support:
Support1: 18.42 Support2: 15.33
Resistance:
Resistance1: 28.46 Resistance2: 34.66
_______________________________________-
http://www.stoxline.com/quote.php?symbol=STX



STX

[MorningLightMountain]

bought WDC in the 38s today, just a taste for now.......keeping an eye on STX too.....

[chmcnfunds]

Chairman and CEO purchased shares:

Ordinary Shares 5/3/2016 P 200000 A $20.0817 (1) 1826969

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Bucking the overall market. Got to believe it is a rush for the dividend:

4/29/2016 quarterly $0.63 12.3% 5/6/2016 5/10/2016 5/24/2016

5/6/2016 is the ex-date.

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Got to agree. Was surprised there were so many downgrades or lowing of the target price. I thought there would be a few more stating it was a buy at the recently reduced pps -- maybe even ZACKS (LOL). Got to believe there will be some big guys who can't resist the dividend who will buy before Friday.

I see oversold on the RSI, CCI and Wm%R(14):



STX

[pack10]

Way oversold imo. Analyst have a tendency to overreact as well. very good value at these levels without even considering the dividend.

[chmcnfunds]

Analysts piling on:

5/2/2016 Citigroup Inc. Lower Price Target Sell $22.00 -> $18.00
5/2/2016 Needham & Company LLC Lower Price Target Buy $41.00 -> $31.00
5/2/2016 Maxim Group Reiterated Rating Hold $36.00 -> $25.00
5/2/2016 JPMorgan Chase & Co. Downgrade Neutral -> Underweight $30.00 -> $15.00
5/2/2016 Brean Capital Lower Price Target Buy $50.00 -> $30.00
4/30/2016 Cowen and Company Reiterated Rating Hold
4/30/2016 Robert W. Baird Reiterated Rating Hold
4/30/2016 RBC Capital Downgrade Outperform -> Sector Perform $36.00 -> $24.00
__________________________________________
http://www.marketbeat.com/stocks/NASDAQ/STX/

STX

[doebop]

Manipulated market, it will bounce nicely

[chmcnfunds]

Added back also, but unfortunately badly estimated the potential down slide. Bought mostly at $24.50 early looking for a bounce and then more at $22.25 to average down. Grrr! Lost all the gains just had made.

Thinking the dividend will come into play once the shorts cover. Over-sold by all indicators. Thoughts?

STX

[doebop]

Got lucky and dumped yesterday.. added some back today

[chmcnfunds]

Sold at $27.50 about 10 mins before the Fed release. STX looking great the last few days, but too afraid of possible downturn with the Fed notes.

Could shoot up???

STX

[Impacto]

Yep, you are correct :)
Imo

[doebop]

Easy money coming this week

[Impacto]

Yep , agreed ;)

[pack10]

I agree. Last time I bought shares was a very similar situation. I ow enjoy a double digit return from those shares.
Investors should focus more on what STX is doing rather than short term thinking.

Seagate Technology plc today unveiled a production-ready unit of the fastest single solid-state drive (SSD) demonstrated to date, with throughput performance of 10 gigabytes per second (GB/s). The early unit meets Open Compute Project (OCP) specifications, making it ideal for hyperscale data centers looking to adopt the fastest flash technology with the latest and most sustainable standards.

The 10GB/s unit, which is expected to be released this summer, is more than 4GB/s faster than the previous fastest-industry SSD on the market. It also meets the OCP storage specifications being driven by Facebook, which will help reduce the power and cost burdens traditionally associated with operating at this level of performance.

[Impacto]

This is a huge buy ;)
Imo

[sick nam vet]

Think your right. Holding on this one.

[pack10]

An almost 8% dividend with a p/e of 5. Are you kidding me!!!

[pack10]

I've been in this stock for a long time and have seen this before. Always overreacts. somewhat surprised the dividend isn't holding up the PPS.

[sick nam vet]

In at 25.55,will average down if the bottom falls out.

[swampboots]

Monday better.

[chmcnfunds]

Thought could catch a falling knife. Bought STX @ $26.45 -- ouch. Definitely over-sold and looking for a double bottom:



STX

[sorkin]

Bought @ 39.8

[chmcnfunds]

Seagate Technology PLC Research Coverage Started at Maxim Group (STX)

Posted by Max Byerly on Apr 15th, 2015 // No Comments

Seagate Technology PLC logoEquities researchers at Maxim Group began coverage on shares of Seagate Technology PLC (NYSE:STX) in a research report issued on Wednesday. The firm set a “buy” rating and a $68.00 price target on the stock. Maxim Group’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 21.93% from the stock’s previous close.

STX has been the subject of a number of other recent research reports. Analysts at Bank of America upgraded shares of Seagate Technology PLC from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $55.41 to $60.00 in a research note on Tuesday. Analysts at Susquehanna lowered their price target on shares of Seagate Technology PLC from $37.00 to $35.00 and set a “positive” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday. Analysts at Brean Capital reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Seagate Technology PLC in a research note on Monday. Finally, analysts at Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “positive” rating on shares of Seagate Technology PLC in a research note on Tuesday, March 31st. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. The company has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $63.89.

Shares of Seagate Technology PLC (NYSE:STX) opened at 55.77 on Wednesday. Seagate Technology PLC has a 1-year low of $48.49 and a 1-year high of $69.40. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $55. and its 200-day moving average is $60.. The company has a market cap of $18.31 billion and a P/E ratio of 9.25.

Seagate Technology PLC (NYSE:STX) last released its earnings data on Monday, January 26th. The company reported $1.35 EPS for the quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $1.34 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $3.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.73 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.32 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Seagate Technology PLC will post $4.80 EPS for the current fiscal year.

In other Seagate Technology PLC news, insider William D. Mosley sold 58,581 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $55.51, for a total transaction of $3,251,831.31. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link.

Seagate Technology plc (NYSE:STX) is the provider of electronic data storage products. The Company’s principal products are hard disk drives, commonly referred to as disk drives, hard drives or HDDs. The Company produces a range of disk drive products addressing enterprise applications, where its products are designed for enterprise servers, mainframes and workstations; client compute applications, where its products are designed for desktop and notebook computers, and client non-compute applications, where its products are designed for a range of end user devices, such as digital video recorders (DVRs), personal data backup systems, portable external storage systems and digital media systems.
__________________________________________
http://tickerreport.com/banking-finance/453478/seagate-technology-plc-research-coverage-started-at-maxim-group-stx/

STX

[chmcnfunds]

BofA upgrades Seagate, Western Digital ahead of earnings • 9:37 AM

Eric Jhonsa, SA News Editor

Believing PC weakness is priced in and valuations are low, BofA/Merrill has upgraded Seagate (STX +0.8%) to Neutral and Western Digital (WDC +1.1%) to Buy ahead of the companies' calendar Q1 reports (set for April 17 and 28, respectively).
BofA thinks pricing is holding up well in spite of PC-driven unit weakness, and that a mix shift towards higher-margin enterprise drives (fueled by Web/cloud demand) is propping up both ASPs and gross margins.
Nonetheless, the firm is respectively cutting its Q1 and Q2 hard drive market shipment (NYSE:TAM) forecasts by 4M and 3M to 126M and 129M - Seagate/Western's Q1 forecast is at 135M - and its 2015 TAM forecast by 9M to 525M. Estimates for both firms have been moderately cut.
Regarding Western, BofA argues the company's strong SSD presence (made possible by a string of acquisitions) "ensures that the cannibalization of performance drives [by SSDs] is not a significant net negative."
The upgrades come a day after Brean reiterated Buy ratings on Seagate/Western (while cutting estimates), and Jefferies added Western to its Franchise Pick list; like BofA, Jefferies cited the demand/ASP boost provided by high-capacity cloud drives, and argued PC issues are priced in.
_____________________________________
http://seekingalpha.com/news/2424646-bofa-upgrades-seagate-western-digital-ahead-of-earnings?auth_param=udil:1aiq61l:928ffdee3698a55b39b40de48e6e9e29&uprof=46#email_link

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Seagate: Contrarian Pick With Solid Fundamentals

Apr. 6, 2015 7:00 PM ET | 3 comments | About: Seagate Technology (STX)
Disclosure: The author has no positions in any stocks mentioned, but may initiate a long position in STX over the next 72 hours. (More...)

Summary

Seagate has fallen more than 20% YTD due to negative sentiment on its core business.
The company still has increasing revenue and extremely strong fundamentals.
Investors looking for a good contrarian pick should look no further than Seagate, which generates tons of cash and has a history of returning value to shareholders.
Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) is an out-of-favor stock that has fallen roughly 20% so far in 2015. A combination of declining PC and laptop sales and a gradual shift away from HDD to SSD has given investors a negative view of the long-term viability of the company. However, Seagate is still one of the dominant players in the massive HDD market, operates extremely efficiently, generates tremendous free cash flow, and is shareholder friendly. As a result, Seagate has the potential to be a decent contrarian pick at current levels.

Valuation

It's becoming increasingly difficult to find undervalued stocks in the market, but I believe at $52/share, Seagate has decent upside potential with good downside protection. With a P/E of just 8.7, Seagate trades at less than half the value of the S&P 500, which has a trailing P/E of 17.7. Given the fact that revenue has grown 6.6% in the first six months of FY 2015 and gross margins have stayed over 28%, the low valuation is discounting the company's strong operating strengths and ignoring the value being returned to shareholders.

STX Chart (click link for charts/tables)

STX data by YCharts

Looking back over the past 16 months, you can see Seagate has established a floor around $50/share. This has occurred for two reasons. When the stock dips down to $50, the dividend yield increases to 4.3%, which brings in dividend investors, and the company opportunistically buys back shares. Over the past five years, the company has effectively removed more than 30% of all outstanding shares. In the previous conference calls, management has repeatedly stated it would opportunistically repurchase shares under $60. In FY 2013, 54 million shares were repurchased and another 41 million in FY 2014. Through the first six months of FY 2015 (June 2014-December 2014), only 3 million shares have been repurchased due in part because the stock has traded above $60 for much of the reported FY. With the steep decline in price since late February, it's likely the company will step up its buyback program in the back half of the fiscal year.

STX Shares Outstanding Chart

STX Shares Outstanding data by YCharts (click link for charts/tables)

Dividend

STX Dividend Chart (click link for charts/tables)


STX Dividend data by YCharts

On October 14, 2014, Seagate received a partial payment of $773 million from a judgment against Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC). Management stated a portion of this money would be returned to shareholders through dividends. The company has followed through by increasing the quarterly dividend 26% to $0.54. This dividend increase follows previous increases of 13% and 19% over the last two years. In fact, since the company reinstated its dividend in 2011, the quarterly dividend has a 31.6% CAGR. This impressive growth has given the stock a forward yield of 4.1%. Management expects to continue to increase the dividend on an annual basis by at least 10%. This gives an already attractive yield further upside for dividend growth investors. The most important part of Seagate's dividend is the company can easily cover continued increases through its free cash flow.

Free Cash Flow (click link for charts/tables)

STX Free Cash Flow (<a href=

STX Free Cash Flow (TTM) data by YCharts

One of the best ways to get an accurate view of the health of any company is to look at its free cash flow. Free cash flow gives a company the flexibility to pay down debt, acquire other firms, increase dividends and buy back shares. Seagate generates a tremendous amount of FCF. During FY 2014, the company generated $2 billion in FCF, and through the first six months of FY 2015, has generated nearly $900 million, excluding the $773 million partial payment from Western Digital in October 2014. This gives the stock a trailing twelve-month FCF yield of 13.6%. This is a remarkable number that puts the company ahead of many of the other well-established major tech companies that are known cash cows, such as Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT).

STX Free Cash Flow Yield Chart (click link for charts/tables)

STX Free Cash Flow Yield (TTM) data by YCharts

Because of Seagate's ability to generate FCF, it has allowed the company to significantly increase its dividend payments over the past several years, remove more than 30% of outstanding shares over the past five years, and obtain a Baa3 rating with a stable outlook from Moody's. With the dividend accounting for less than 30% of FCF, it should also give dividend investors the confidence in the company's ability to maintain and increase payouts on a consistent basis.

Takeaway

Seagate's dependence on PC and laptop sales, as well as mounting pressure from increased adoption of SSDs, has led to the stock falling 20% YTD. While this is a serious issue and may eventually lead to declining revenues down the road, I believe investors can benefit in the short-to-medium term (1-3 years) on this undervalued stock. Because the shift away from PCs to tablets and mobile devices will continue to present a problem for the majority of Seagate's revenue, I don't believe the company is a buy-and-hold-forever stock. Rather, investors have the opportunity to buy a mispriced stock with solid fundamentals and a safe 4.1% dividend yield and wait for a positive catalyst that its FCF can bring. While I'm not convinced Seagate can rely on HHD sales 10 years down the road, I do see the company being able to capitalize on its market dominance over the next couple years, which can bring 20% upside to shareholders while enjoying a 4+% yield.

Management has stated its intentions to repurchase shares under $60/share. Its ability to remove over 30% of outstanding shares in a short time period illustrates just how committed management is to this process. With a strong level of resistance being built into the stock around $50/share, investors have the ability to buy near a 52-week low and wait for a turnaround. Over the next 12 months, I believe the stock will appreciate to around $60-$65 based on its significant discount to the overall market and the company's ability to continue to generate tremendous amounts of cash from its established HHD sales. A 20% appreciation would bring the P/E to just over 10, its FCF yield still over 10%, and put the stock at a modest $62/share. Looking at the consensus price target of $63.56 from the 22 analysts following the stock, a 20% increase in Seagate shares isn't a stretch to say the least. When an out-of-favor established company still has the ability to generate huge amounts of cash and has a strong track record of returning that cash to shareholders, it's an easy way to make money off of contrarian investing.
_______________________________________
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3053866-seagate-contrarian-pick-with-solid-fundamentals?auth_param=udil:1ai8odp:e2f0e766d48e0858c4a92cfccdf5a8df&uprof=46

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Sure looks like the bottom is in:



Almost all indicators positive except SAR which has got to flip soon.

STX

[MorningLightMountain]

yep, buy STX and WDC on any short term pullbacks.......

[chmcnfunds]

Factors That Can Trigger Movement In Seagate's Stock Price

Apr. 2, 2015 2:52 PM ET | About: Seagate Technology (STX), Includes: WDC

Summary

We forecast Seagate’s laptop HDD units to rise from 73 million units in 2014 to about 79 million by 2017 and then gradually decline to under 75 million through the end of the decade.
We currently forecast desktop hard drives shipped by Seagate to decline from about 73 million units in 2014 to 62 million units by the end of our forecast period.
We have a $58 price estimate for Seagate, which is about 10% higher than the current market price.

Hard drive manufacturer Seagate Technology (NASDAQ:STX) has witnessed a tough environment for PC and laptop hard drive sales in the last few years owing to weak global IT spend and declining PC/laptop shipments. A large chunk of the desktop and laptop market has been cannibalized by the penetration of smartphones and tablets, which use flash-storage instead of traditional spinning disk hard drives. However, the penetration of SSDs in the consumer market is still limited, with hybrid drives (SSD-based cache memory coupled with standard hard drives) gaining popularity. As a result, we expect hard drive manufacturers including Seagate and Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) to continue to reap benefits in the PC and Laptop storage market in the coming years.

On the other hand, enterprise customers have switched over to flash-based storage at a much faster rate than individual end-users, since the requirement of high-end storage is more apparent for cloud storage or in data centers. The prices of flash storage have declined significantly over the last few years driven by significant demand. Although prices for SSDs are expected to continue to fall, they still likely won’t be as cheap HDDs in the next few years. As a result, Seagate and Western Digital have focused on cheaper alternates to flash storage for enterprise and cloud customers with innovative products such as helium-filled drives and the Kinetic Open Storage Platform. These products are still in nascent stages, and the success of these alternates to SSDs would depend on the long-term customer response.

There is still some uncertainty around the rate of adoption of Seagate’s products and popularity among the end-users or enterprises, which suggests that there is room for stock price movement depending on how the results turn out in the few years. Below we look at a few potential scenarios, and the potential impact on the company’s stock price.

PCs Switch To SSDs Sooner Than Expected (-10% Stock Price Impact)

Seagate has often downplayed the importance of pure SSDs (especially in the consumer market) in the past and focused on alternatives such as hybrid drives that use flash-based storage as cache memory riding on top of a HDD. The company did not bet big on SSDs mainly because they are not cheap enough to attract volumes. Moreover, with the current rate of decline of SSD prices, manufacturing them at a mass scale does not currently seem like a viable option. As a result, the company is focused on delivering solid state hybrid drives (SSHD) and cheaper traditional spinning disk hard drives in the consumer market. As a result, we forecast Seagate’s laptop HDD units (including both SSHD and HDD) to rise from 73 million units in 2014 to about 79 million by 2017 and then gradually decline to under 75 million through the end of the decade. We expect unit shipments to decline post-2017 since SSDs will eventually start becoming adopted on a larger scale.

Similarly, we currently forecast desktop hard drives shipped by Seagate to decline from about 73 million units in 2014 to 62 million units by the end of our forecast period. This decline corresponds to IDC’s forecast for falling global PC shipments. Additionally, as SSDs become more relevant in the consumer market, the unit shipments for SSHDs and traditional HDDs are likely to suffer even more. If the industry-wide adoption of pure SSDs happens sooner than anticipated, the decline in PC and laptop HDDs could be steeper for hard drive manufacturers. This is also likely to reduce average selling prices for HDDs and put pressure on margins. If desktop and laptop HDD units shipped by Seagate decline to 55 million and 63 million units, respectively, the average selling price per unit falls by about 5-6% per unit and the adjusted gross margin for the PC and Laptop division is compressed by just over a percentage point through the end of the decade, there could be a 10% discount to our price estimate for the company.

Enterprise And Cloud Storage Switches To SSD Alternatives (+10% Impact)
Seagate’s enterprise storage division caters to businesses and institutional clients, with its storage products designed for mission critical and nearline applications. The market for mission critical enterprise storage solutions has grown at a rapid pace over the last few years, as cloud-based storage has shifted consumers away from storing data locally. Additionally, the number of data centers which need to maintain backups of data and information on servers, and the number of large businesses that require high-end data storage, have risen significantly over the years. Accordingly, enterprise-grade hard drives are manufactured to withstand high workloads and deliver optimum performance for long periods of time. However, flash-based or SSD storage is increasingly becoming a an integral part of data centers or cloud storage.

SSDs have various advantages over spinning disk HDDs such as better performance, low latency, higher durability, less vulnerability to mechanical shock, less power consumption and lower cooling requirements. As a result, SSDs and all-flash arrays are increasingly becoming the preferred option for enterprises and data centers. Needless to say, the price per GB for SSDs is still significantly higher than HDDs. To bridge the price gap, Seagate has introduced cheaper alternatives to SSDs such as shingled magnetic recording (SMR) drives, the Kinetic Open Storage Platform and heat-assisted laser drives.

We currently forecast Seagate’s enterprise and cloud storage unit shipments to rise from 33 million units in 2014 to 55 million units, and the average price per unit to increase from $124 per unit to $138 per unit by the end of our forecast period. If the alternatives to SSDs play a key role in the coming years and gain popularity among enterprise clients, it could boost product sales for Seagate. If the unit shipments rise to about 64 million units, with the average selling price rising to about $150 through the end of our forecast period, there could be a 10% upside to our price estimate for the company.

We have a $58 price estimate for Seagate, which is about 10% higher than the current market price.
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http://seekingalpha.com/article/3048406-factors-that-can-trigger-movement-in-seagates-stock-price?auth_param=udil:1ahr41h:56fae4ddc2e7d667b30805b333340875&uprof=46

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) a Buy: RBC Capital

MAR 26, 2015 Bryan Anderson

In a research note issued to investors, Amit Daryanani at RBC Capital Reiterated their Buy rating on Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX). The analyst placed a $62.00 price target on the stock which indicates a 14.03% upside to the last closing price. In the year following Amit’s ratings, the stocks covered yield an average return of 8.7% according to TipRanks.com. In the past year 61 out of 98 recommendations or 62% were successful.

Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:STX) shares opened the most recent trading session at 52.5000 and at the time of writing the last Bid was at N/A. In the current trading session the stock reached as high as 54.2600 and dipped down to 52.1200. Seagate Technology., a NMS listed company, has a current market cap of 17.77B and on average over the past 3 months has seen 3559570 shares trade hands on a daily basis.

On a technical level the stock has a 50 Day Moving Average of 58.3951. Based on a recent trade, this puts the equity at -7.2958% away from that average. In comparing the stock’s current level to its extended history, the stock is trading -21.9961% away from it’s 52-week high of 69.4000 and +11.6410% away from the stock’s low point over the past 52 weeks, which was 48.4900. On a consensus basis, analysts have a one year target price of 63.4300. The company last reported earnings per share of 6.0300.

The consensus analyst estimates according to First Call for the next quarter is 1.1200. The current year EPS estimate on the stock is 4.8700 and the EPS estimate for next year sits at 5.3400. In looking at the fundamentals, STX has a P/E ratio of 8.9776 and a price to book ratio of 4.7455. The company’s Book Value is 11.2970 and most recently reported EBITDA of 2.62B. The price compared to next year’s EPS estimate in the current year is 10.1376.

Company Profile

Seagate Technology PLC (STX) is the provider of electronic data storage products. The Company’s principal products are hard disk drives, commonly referred to as disk drives, hard drives or HDDs. The Company produces a range of disk drive products addressing enterprise applications, where its products are designed for enterprise servers, mainframes and workstations; client compute applications, where its products are designed for desktop and notebook computers, and client non-compute applications, where its products are designed for a range of end user devices, such as digital video recorders (DVRs), personal data backup systems, portable external storage systems and digital media systems. In April 2014, Seagate completed the acquisition of Xyratex Ltd. In September 2014, Seagate Technology PLC completes acquisition of the assets of LSI’s Accelerated Solutions Division (ASD) and Flash Components Division (FCD) from Avago Technologies Limited.
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http://www.markets.co/seagate-technology-plc-nasdaqstx-a-buy-rbc-capital-2/7648/

STX

[starbuxsux]

Was distracted and I didn't pull the trigger so watching it now

[chmcnfunds]

Did you consider STX? Watched but didn't want to chase. Bought on the pullback today at $55.10 (had order in before opening and got caught). Hopefully should not be much more downside:



Good analyst support.

STX

[chmcnfunds]

Consensus Ratings for Seagate Technology PLC (NYSE:STX)
Ratings Breakdown: 1 Sell Rating(s), 7 Hold Rating(s), 9 Buy Rating(s), 1 Strong Buy Rating(s)
Consensus Rating: Buy (Score: 2.56)
Consensus Price Target: $65.32 (18.06% upside)
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http://www.analystratings.net/stocks/NYSE/STX/

STX

[chmcnfunds]

If timed the peaks and dips could have made a lot of money -- I didn't. I made a few trades for a few hundred each. Need to be more disciplined. Just too many "great" stocks:



It always comes back. Question is when to get in?

http://www.analystratings.net/stocks/NYSE/STX/

STX