Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) Reaches New 12-Month High – Here’s What Happened

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI)’s share price reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $49.11 and last traded at $44.16, with a volume of 8839579 shares traded. The stock had previously closed at $43.61.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts have weighed in on AAOI shares. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $50.00 price objective on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Friday, December 19th. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on Applied Optoelectronics from $38.00 to $43.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Northland Securities set a $45.00 price target on Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Thursday, December 11th. Finally, B. Riley reiterated a “sell” rating and set a $15.00 price target on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Monday, November 10th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, one has given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $35.60.

Applied Optoelectronics Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.23, a current ratio of 2.31 and a quick ratio of 1.63. The firm has a market capitalization of $2.72 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -12.39 and a beta of 3.32. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $34.94 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $29.53.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The semiconductor company reported ($0.09) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.10) by $0.01. The firm had revenue of $118.63 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $119.77 million. Applied Optoelectronics had a negative return on equity of 7.34% and a negative net margin of 36.97%.Applied Optoelectronics’s revenue was up 82.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.21) EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post -1.18 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Applied Optoelectronics news, CFO Stefan J. Murry sold 934 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $35.00, for a total transaction of $32,690.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 283,037 shares in the company, valued at $9,906,295. This represents a 0.33% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, insider David C. Kuo sold 12,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.05, for a total transaction of $540,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 114,636 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,164,351.80. This represents a 9.48% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 28,500 shares of company stock worth $1,178,726 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 4.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Applied Optoelectronics

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of AAOI. CloudAlpha Capital Management Limited Hong Kong lifted its position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 410.7% during the 2nd quarter. CloudAlpha Capital Management Limited Hong Kong now owns 1,408,983 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $36,197,000 after purchasing an additional 1,133,115 shares during the last quarter. Sovereign Financial Group Inc. acquired a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics in the second quarter valued at $287,000. Allspring Global Investments Holdings LLC purchased a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the 2nd quarter worth about $7,201,000. Squarepoint Ops LLC acquired a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics during the 2nd quarter worth about $4,283,000. Finally, Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC purchased a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics in the 2nd quarter valued at about $3,468,000. 61.70% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Applied Optoelectronics

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc develops and manufactures high-speed fiber-optic networking products designed to support the growing bandwidth demands of data centers, telecommunications carriers and internet content providers. The company’s core offerings include pluggable optical transceiver modules, transponders and optical components that enable data transmission at rates ranging from 1G to 400G. These products are used to facilitate long-haul, metro and intra-data center connectivity, addressing the need for scalable, low-latency and energy-efficient solutions in modern network infrastructures.

The company’s product portfolio spans small-form factor pluggable modules such as SFP+, QSFP+ and QSFP28 units, as well as more advanced form factors like CFP2 and OSFP for ultra-high-speed applications.