Western Digital Corporation (NYSE: WDC) designs, develops, manufactures and markets hard drives. Its devices are used for non-volatile data storage in personal computers, servers, network storage, video game consoles, digital video recording devices and TV set-top boxes. The firm sells its products worldwide to manufacturers, distributors and such retailers as Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN), Office Depot (NYSE: ODP) and Target (NYSE: TGT).

Shareholders were pleased last week, when Robert Baird issued positive remarks regarding Western Digital's prospects. Baird noted healthy overall trends in the hard disk drive industry and believed that Western's recent acquisition of Komag gave it a strategic advantage over many competitors. Also last week, Caris boosted its Western Digital unit estimates.

WDC shares popped on the news and then moved into a bullish "flag" consolidation pattern. Prices frequently exit flags moving in the same direction they were traveling on entry. In this case, that would be to the upside.

Brokers recommend the shares with two "strong buys", five "buys", ten "holds" and one "underperform". The WDC P/E ratio (9.08), PEG ratio (0.68), Price to Sales ratio (1.04), Price to Cash Flow ratio (6.28), Price to Free Cash Flow ratio (10.04), Sales Growth rate (49.72%), EPS Growth rate (130.38%), Return on Assets (24.07%), Return on Investment (37.34%) and Return on Equity (43.81%) compare favorably with industry, sector and S&P 500 averages. Institutions own about 92% of the outstanding shares. The stock is one of those used to calculate the S&P 400 MidCap Index. Over the past 52 weeks, it has traded between $17.31 and $35.94. A stop-loss of $30.00 looks good here.

Larry Schutts is a contributing editor for Theflyonthewall.com and the Vice-President of Stockwinners.com. He does not hold positions in any of the stocks mentioned above.