Nicholas Investment Partners LP Takes Position in Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. $AAOI

Nicholas Investment Partners LP purchased a new stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 45,060 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,676,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also modified their holdings of AAOI. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the second quarter valued at $955,672,000. Invesco Ltd. increased its position in Applied Optoelectronics by 5,208.9% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,512,309 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $122,439,000 after purchasing an additional 3,446,150 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 5,321.6% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,229,757 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $77,730,000 after purchasing an additional 2,188,630 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 157.1% during the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,699,855 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $59,257,000 after purchasing an additional 1,038,775 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP lifted its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 106.2% during the 4th quarter. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP now owns 1,700,900 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $59,293,000 after buying an additional 875,903 shares during the last quarter. 61.70% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on AAOI. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 price target on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (e+)” rating in a research report on Monday, August 17th. B. Riley Financial reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $178.00 target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, August 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $139.40.

Applied Optoelectronics Trading Down 13.8%

NASDAQ:AAOI opened at $107.63 on Tuesday. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a 12 month low of $18.50 and a 12 month high of $233.67. The firm has a market cap of $9.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -137.99 and a beta of 3.76. The company has a quick ratio of 2.13, a current ratio of 2.78 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. The company’s 50 day moving average is $126.05 and its 200-day moving average is $125.85.

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

Insider Activity at Applied Optoelectronics

In other news, insider David C. Kuo sold 29,227 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.53, for a total value of $4,867,172.31. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 149,078 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $24,825,959.34. This represents a 16.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CEO Chih-Hsiang (Thompson) Lin sold 59,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.53, for a total transaction of $9,825,270.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,302,436 shares in the company, valued at approximately $216,894,667.08. The trade was 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. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 272,629 shares of company stock valued at $45,881,654. 3.80% of the stock is owned by corporate 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.