02:45 PM EDT, 04/24/2024 (MT Newswires) -- CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:

We keep our 12-month target at $105, shifting to a P/E of 16.6x our CY 25 EPS view of $6.32. We up our FY 24 (Jun.) EPS to $0.93 from $0.72 and FY 25's to $5.51 from $5.07. STX posted Q3 EPS of $0.33 vs. -$0.28, a $0.07 consensus beat. Revenue fell 11%, driven by improvement in the nearline cloud market and favorable pricing, partially offsetting typical seasonality headwinds in the VIA market. HDD capacity shipped of 99EB (+4% Q/Q) and average capacity per drive of 8.7TB (+6% Q/Q) both showed solid execution on the mass capacity front. Gross margin expanded 250 bps to 26.1% on pricing tailwinds and favorable mix shift. While there were some hiccups delaying the HAMR ramp, we still view STX's Mozaic platform and initial 3+TB HAMR drives as catalysts in '24. Additionally, the $600M IP/asset sale to Avago Technologies should provide added financial flexibility for debt paydown or boosting FCF generation during the upcycle. With a $5B net debt load, we project $450M FCF in FY 24 improving to $970M in FY 25.