Western Digital Performs Under Pressure

When fellow Fool Jim Mueller added Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) to his Messed-Up Expectations portfolio, he saw a storage industry on the turnaround path, where Western Digital was taking larger strides than archrival Seagate Technology (Nasdaq: STX). Then he bought more when the stock became cheaper on short-sighted concerns about oversupply in the hard drive market. All of this made perfect sense to me.

I bet Jim is feeling good about those real-money buys today as both lots are up by about 25%. That includes a small jump of about 3% since Western Digital released its third-quarter report a couple of market days ago.

A lot has changed since the last report:

• Western Digital is sinking its claws into the storage unit of Hitachi (NYSE: HIT), sparking Seagate's license-laden acquisition of Samsung's hard drive assets in response.
• Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) fumbled the introduction of its Sandy Bridge processor, or more precisely, of its supporting cast of chips, which delayed plenty of system builds and orders.
• The earthquake and tsunami in Japan veiled component supply in a dark shroud, which made system builders and global enterprises bulk up their hard drive orders while the getting is good.

All in all, Western Digital delivered a fine quarter, just like Seagate before it. The company's $0.66 of non-GAAP earnings on $2.25 billion in sales was a step back from the year-ago quarter but slightly better than analyst expectations.

To stand and deliver like this amid the swiftly shifting winds of this industry speaks volumes about the sharp execution we're seeing from both Seagate and Western Digital. Top-notch management should be a key criterion when you add stocks to your portfolio, and the two storage giants have it in spades.

There are still some adjustments left to make as Western Digital's exposure to next-generation solid-state storage -- or SSD -- technologies remains limited. Leaving that market untouched will leave the company withering as SMART Modular Technologies (Nasdaq: SMOD), STEC (Nasdaq: STEC), and even Seagate storm that scene en masse.

But that's nothing that a small-scale acquisition or two couldn't change -- or perhaps a cross-licensing partnership with Toshiba to mirror Seagate's grab for Samsung's memory-chip patents. I'd be shocked if neither of these cures were applied to Western Digital in 2011.

Follow the news up-close and personal by adding Western Digital to your watchlist. It's the easiest way to peruse all our Foolish research on the stock in one place, and to stay on top of new developments. For starters, you'll be the first to know when Jim makes another move on Western Digital.