Rice Hall James & Associates LLC Sells 73,252 Shares of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. $AAOI

Rice Hall James & Associates LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) by 42.7% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 98,318 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock after selling 73,252 shares during the period. Rice Hall James & Associates LLC’s holdings in Applied Optoelectronics were worth $8,317,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 10.4% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 25,579 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $393,000 after acquiring an additional 2,415 shares during the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers bought a new position in Applied Optoelectronics in the second quarter valued at approximately $377,000. New York State Common Retirement Fund grew its stake in Applied Optoelectronics by 36.0% in the second quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 17,000 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $437,000 after purchasing an additional 4,500 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 50.0% during the 2nd quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 60,817 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $1,562,000 after purchasing an additional 20,261 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP acquired a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $952,000. Institutional investors own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AAOI has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Monday, April 13th. Raymond James Financial reiterated an “outperform” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Needham & Company LLC decreased their price objective on shares of Applied Optoelectronics from $260.00 to $220.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $220.00 price objective on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Monday, June 22nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Tuesday, July 7th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $141.80.

Applied Optoelectronics Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ AAOI opened at $100.15 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 3.83, a quick ratio of 3.03 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a 12 month low of $18.50 and a 12 month high of $233.67. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $150.48 and a 200-day moving average of $113.09. The company has a market capitalization of $8.04 billion, a P/E ratio of -151.74 and a beta of 3.69.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The semiconductor company reported ($0.07) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.05) by ($0.02). Applied Optoelectronics had a negative net margin of 8.55% and a negative return on equity of 4.64%. The business had revenue of $151.14 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $156.98 million. During the same quarter last year, the company posted ($0.02) EPS. The firm’s revenue was up 51.3% on a year-over-year basis. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q2 2026 guidance at -0.030-0.030 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post 0.6 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Applied Optoelectronics news, Director Cynthia Delaney sold 56,575 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $189.23, for a total value of $10,705,687.25. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 59,647 shares in the company, valued at $11,287,001.81. The trade was a 48.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider Shu-Hua (Joshua) Yeh sold 39,154 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $173.26, for a total transaction of $6,783,822.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 462,430 shares in the company, valued at $80,120,621.80. The trade was a 7.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 500,215 shares of company stock valued at $86,658,774. 3.80% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.