Seagate Gets Used To Losses (STX, WDC)

Seagate Technology (Nasdaq: STX) posted its fiscal third quarter earnings, with non-GAAP EPS coming in at -$0.56 EPS on $2.15 billion in revenues.  Estimates from Thomson Reuters were -$0.45 EPS on $2.01 billion for the quarter.  This will likely set the tone for Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) earnings this Thursday as well.

The leader in storage and drive devices now sees a return to profitability within its Fiscal-2010. We show that it ended the quarter with roughly $1.5 billion in cash and short-term liquidity investments.

The storage and disk drive leader also issued guidance at -$0.47 to -$0.37 non-GAAP EPS and put revenues at $1.9 to $2.2 billion.  Thomson Reuters had those estimates at -$0.30 EPS and $1.98 billion in revenues.

Shares closed up over 3% at $6.67 and its 52-week trading range is $2.98 to $22.78.  The initial trading has Seagate up marginally in after-hours trading.

Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) closed up over 2% at $21.68 and it reports earnings in two-days.  We have not seen much activity there in the after-hours session.  The difference between these two today is that Western Digital is still expected to remain profitable.

JON C. OGG