WDC might be able to make a slight comeback in the lower end drive market for PCs, which is highly competitive. They are the #3 player here. The exit from the enterprise class of drive helps their competition enough that the competitors may be able to belly up to the bar and do a take out of WD down the road. As competitive as this market is getting, it would make a great deal of sense to take out WDC at these prices just to get rid of the competition, but more importantly, to a get a quality drive at a decent discount.
Even though WDC is #3 in the sector, I always replace my hard drives with WD Caviar Drives. Brand recognition with certified high quality in my mind. The funny thing is that the drives I replace are not broken but are lower density or slower drives. I have yet to have a Caviar drive go bad. I have had 540MB, 1.2 GB, 1.6 GB, 6.4GB, all the way up to the 20+ GB drives (7200 RPM) without incident. Maybe I have been very lucky or maybe the drives are that good.
I am not particularly fond of the DD sector as an investment opportunity, but if I were to invest in a stock, it would be WDC on the off chance (since it makes sense) it will be a takeover target. I would not bet the farm on the stock but at current prices, brokerages can now solicit investors and the institutions can get involved again.
The $5 threshold is an important barrier which they just overcame.
Andrew
PS - I apologize for the lack of wordwrap on #2595. for the life if me I can't out how I accomplished that. |
