Western Digital [WDC]
Sources, transformations, and every place a vendor figure was rejected in favour of a primary filing. This name is the project's canonical post-corporate-action defect case; the provenance below is the main deliverable of this file.
| Item | Source used | Why not the alternative |
|---|---|---|
| FQ3'26 revenue, margins, EPS; FQ4 guidance; 9M FY25/FY26 restated comparatives | 8-K 0001628280-26-028878, EX-99.1 (2026-04-30) | Primary, and it prints the restated continuing-ops comparatives that resolve the AV error |
| Quarterly revenue / gross profit / operating income | EDGAR companyfacts XBRL, latest-filed value per period | AV carries a pre-separation combined figure for the Dec-2024 quarter — rejected |
| Shares outstanding | 10-Q XBRL CommonStockSharesOutstanding = 345m (2026-04-03); dei cover 344.7m (2026-04-23) |
AV commonStockSharesOutstanding = 376.0m is the diluted WASO — rejected |
| Diluted shares for valuation | 385m (company FQ4 guidance; FQ3 actual 385–387m) | Outstanding (345m) understates market cap by $18.1bn; the ~40m gap is the in-the-money convertible |
| Debt | 10-Q XBRL: LongTermDebt = LongTermDebtCurrent = $1,581m; LongTermDebtNoncurrent = $0 |
The coordinator's "longTermDebt returns 0 in the newest quarter" defect DID fire here — but it is not a defect on this name: WDC genuinely has zero non-current debt because the entire $1.6bn convertible is classified current. Verified against the CFO's own statement of net cash and against DebtInstrumentCarryingAmount = $1,600m principal. A tool that treats a zero here as missing data would create a phantom $1.6bn of debt; a tool that treats it as total debt = 0 would create a $1.6bn EV understatement. Both are wrong; the answer is $1,581m and it required reading the 10-Q. |
| Net cash | +$450m, company-stated (CFO, FQ3'26 call) | Cash $2,050m − debt $1,581m = $469m; the $1,187m of short-term investments (very likely the retained 1.7m SanDisk shares) is excluded for conservatism |
| Exabytes | Earnings-call transcripts, CFO prepared remarks | Not in any filing |
| Opex lines for the bridge | 8-K income statement: R&D $294m, SG&A $147m (FQ3'26) | Per the coordinator's warning, AV sellingGeneralAndAdministrative was not used |
| Prices, realised vol | Alpaca snapshots and bars (adjustment=all) |
— |
| Splits / corporate actions | AV SPLITS: one entry, factor 1.3230 effective 2025-02-24 |
This is the SanDisk spin-off price-adjustment factor, not a stock split. See below. |
| Field | Vendor value | Correct value | Error |
|---|---|---|---|
AV INCOME_STATEMENT.totalRevenue (2024-12-27) |
$4,285m | $2,409m | +$1,876m / +77.9% — pre-separation combined basis inside an otherwise-restated series |
AV INCOME_STATEMENT.operatingIncome (2024-12-27) |
$852m | $560m | +$292m / +52.1% |
AV researchAndDevelopment (2024-12-27) |
$502m | ~$250m restated | ~+100% |
AV commonStockSharesOutstanding (2026-03-31) |
376.0m | 345m | +31m / +9.0% |
AV OVERVIEW.MarketCapitalization |
$179,166m (implies a $519.80 price) | $174,440m at 385m diluted × $453.09 | +$4.7bn / +2.7%, and built on a stale price and the outstanding (not diluted) count — two errors partially cancelling |
AV OVERVIEW.EPS |
$15.57 | ~$9.88 FY2026E non-GAAP | GAAP TTM inflated by the SanDisk monetisation gain; not earnings power |
AV OVERVIEW.ProfitMargin |
55.3% | — | same GAAP artifact |
AV OVERVIEW.OperatingMarginTTM |
37.0% | 30.3% (TTM GAAP $3,570m / $11,777m) | +6.7pp — the AV ebit defect, confirming the coordinator's AMAT finding on a second name |
AV OVERVIEW.EBITDA |
$3,928m | not used | AV ebitda is unusable by rule |
AV INCOME_STATEMENT.operatingIncome (2026-01-02) |
$963m | $908m | +$55m / +6.1% |
AV EARNINGS_ESTIMATES |
estimates: [] |
— | nothing returned |
Alpaca adjusted bars × AV unadjusted reportedEPS, pre-2025-02-24 |
understated every multiple | multiply pre-2025-02-24 adjusted prices by 1.3230 | −24.4% on every pre-separation multiple. First-pass realised-forward P/E of 6.3x–7.2x was wrong; corrected 8.6x–17.1x. Same class as the KLA 10-for-1 split error. |
Alpaca bars close for the current day (2026-07-29) |
$462.04 | latestTrade $453.09 |
+2.0% — the daily bar for an in-progress session is not the last trade. Spot used is $453.09. |
av_vs_edgar.py — re-run on the fixed version| Before fix | After fix | |
|---|---|---|
| STX | cmp=0, disagree=0, trust=NO (null result reported as no disagreements) |
cmp=6, disagree=0, VERIFIED |
| WDC | cmp=0, disagree=0, trust=NO |
cmp=8, disagree=1, worst=1.779x, FAILED |
Both names need the fiscal-calendar tolerance to be checkable at all (max offset 4 days) — they are 52/53-week filers, which is exactly the bug class. The worst disagreement ratio of 1.779x is 4,285 / 2,409 = 1.7788 — i.e. the fixed tool independently reproduces the $1,876m Dec-2024 revenue error found by hand. The pre-fix version would have passed WDC as having nothing to resolve.
| FY2025A | FY2026E | FY2027E | FY2028E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue (continuing ops) | $9,006m | $12,822m | ~$16.95bn | ~$20.3bn |
| growth | — | +42.4% | +32% | +20% |
| Non-GAAP gross margin | ~40% | ~47.6% | ~51% | ~52% |
| Non-GAAP opex | — | ~$1,545m (12.0%) | ~$1,650m (9.7%) | ~$1,730m (8.5%) |
| Non-GAAP operating margin | ~26% (FQ3'25) | 36.3% | ~42% | ~44% |
| Non-GAAP diluted EPS | — | $9.88 | ~$16.05 | ~$20.00 |
| Diluted shares | 359m | ~382m | ~380m | ~375m |
FY2026 = 9M actual ($9,172m revenue, EPS $1.78 + $2.13 + $2.72) plus the guided FQ4 ($3.65bn, GM 51–52%, opex $385–395m, EPS $3.25). FY2027–28 apply management's stated >25% exabyte CAGR with high-single-digit price in FY2027 decaying to low-single-digit in FY2028, and continued buyback at the recent pace (2.9m shares/qtr, partly offset by convertible dilution).
FY2025 revenue of $9,006m is the restated continuing-ops figure (9M $6,915m + FQ4 $2,605m − rounding), NOT the ~$13bn combined figure that appears in pre-separation sources.
| Parameter | Value | Derivation |
|---|---|---|
m_gross,T |
45.0% | 5.5pp below FQ3'26 actual 50.5%, 6.5pp below FQ4 guide |
| R&D | 6.5% | FQ3'26 actual 8.8%; structurally above Seagate's because of the dual ePMR/HAMR roadmap |
| SG&A | 3.5% | FQ3'26 actual 4.4% |
| Other | 0.5% | — |
m_EBIT,T |
34.5% | bridge residual; 1.8pp below FY2026E actual, with three named causal reasons |
| t | 16% | company-guided and FQ3'26 actual |
| g | 4.0% | terminal |
| ROIC | 35% | current ~45% on ~$8.0bn invested capital, decayed |
| WACC | 10.0% | investment grade, net cash, high operating beta |
| Exit EV/EBIT | 12.4x | from the identity |
| FCF margin (interim) | 26.0% | FQ3'26 actual 29.3%, guided >30% |
reverse_dcf.py as shipped is terminal-only and overstates the required CAGR by 5.3pp here
(38.6% vs 33.3%). Both reported; FCF-inclusive used.E throughout.SharesFloat (342.111m) ≤ SharesOutstanding (344.682m) ≤ diluted (385m); float × spot $155.0bn ≤
market cap $174.4bn. Invariant holds.