William Blair Investment Management LLC Purchases Shares of 504,202 Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. $AAOI

William Blair Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) during the second quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor purchased 504,202 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $74,703,000. William Blair Investment Management LLC owned approximately 0.60% of Applied Optoelectronics as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of AAOI. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. increased its stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 10.4% in the 1st 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 in the last quarter. Cetera Investment Advisers bought a new position in Applied Optoelectronics during the second quarter worth $377,000. New York State Common Retirement Fund boosted its stake in Applied Optoelectronics by 36.0% during the second quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund now owns 17,000 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $437,000 after acquiring an additional 4,500 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in Applied Optoelectronics by 50.0% in the second 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 period. Finally, First Trust Advisors LP acquired a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics in the second quarter worth $952,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (e+)” rating in a report on Monday. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Friday, August 7th. B. Riley Financial restated a “neutral” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Wall Street Zen raised Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 8th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC dropped their price target on Applied Optoelectronics from $220.00 to $190.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Applied Optoelectronics currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $139.40.

Insider Activity at Applied Optoelectronics

In related news, CFO Stefan J. Murry sold 4,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $122.09, for a total value of $488,360.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 380,576 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $46,464,523.84. This trade represents a 1.04% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Chih-Hsiang (Thompson) Lin sold 59,000 shares of Applied Optoelectronics stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.53, for a total value of $9,825,270.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 1,302,436 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $216,894,667.08. This trade represents a 4.33% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold a total of 329,204 shares of company stock valued at $56,587,341 over the last quarter. 3.80% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Applied Optoelectronics Stock Performance

NASDAQ AAOI opened at $124.82 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $10.56 billion, a P/E ratio of -160.03 and a beta of 3.76. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $127.73 and a 200 day simple moving average of $124.85. The company has a current ratio of 2.78, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a 12-month low of $18.50 and a 12-month high of $233.67.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.06 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.04. Applied Optoelectronics had a negative net margin of 9.57% and a negative return on equity of 1.98%. The firm had revenue of $191.92 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $190.48 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted ($0.16) earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 86.3% on a year-over-year basis. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.110-0.260 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post 0.55 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.