Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) Shares Down 6.2% After Insider Selling

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) shares traded down 6.2% on Wednesday following insider selling activity. The company traded as low as $135.10 and last traded at $137.3130. 2,311,388 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 75% from the average session volume of 9,231,631 shares. The stock had previously closed at $146.39.

Specifically, CFO Stefan J. Murry sold 4,000 shares of Applied Optoelectronics stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $136.50, for a total value of $546,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 276,070 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $37,683,555. The trade was a 1.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently issued reports on AAOI. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on Applied Optoelectronics from $43.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 27th. Northland Securities restated a “market perform” rating and issued a $55.00 price objective on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Friday, February 27th. B. Riley Financial upgraded shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $54.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Friday, February 27th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Applied Optoelectronics presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $52.80.

Applied Optoelectronics Trading Down 2.6%

The company has a current ratio of 2.63, a quick ratio of 1.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18. The company has a market capitalization of $10.72 billion, a P/E ratio of -219.31 and a beta of 3.23. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $88.75 and a 200 day moving average price of $51.86.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 26th. The semiconductor company reported ($0.01) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.12) by $0.11. Applied Optoelectronics had a negative net margin of 8.39% and a negative return on equity of 5.29%. The business had revenue of $134.27 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $131.56 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.02) EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 33.9% on a year-over-year basis. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q1 2026 guidance at -0.090-0.000 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post -1.18 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Applied Optoelectronics

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Allworth Financial LP increased its stake in Applied Optoelectronics by 1,923.7% during the 4th quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 769 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $27,000 after purchasing an additional 731 shares in the last quarter. Comerica Bank bought a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $28,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. increased its stake in Applied Optoelectronics by 166.7% during the 4th quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 1,200 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 750 shares in the last quarter. Kohmann Bosshard Financial Services LLC bought a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the 4th quarter worth approximately $55,000. Finally, Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $57,000. Institutional investors own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Applied Optoelectronics Company Profile

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.