Fifth Third Bancorp Invests $1.64 Million in Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. $AAOI

Fifth Third Bancorp bought a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 19,325 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,635,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. purchased a new stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics in the 1st quarter worth approximately $4,125,000. Next Century Growth Investors LLC bought a new position in Applied Optoelectronics in the fourth quarter worth approximately $16,220,000. Penn Capital Management Company LLC lifted its holdings in Applied Optoelectronics by 4.7% during the fourth quarter. Penn Capital Management Company LLC now owns 446,032 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $15,565,000 after buying an additional 20,077 shares during the period. 1492 Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the 4th quarter valued at $7,529,000. Finally, CenterBook Partners LP purchased a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics in the 4th quarter valued at $1,074,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

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

Applied Optoelectronics Price Performance

Shares of AAOI opened at $112.02 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.99 billion, a PE ratio of -169.73 and a beta of 3.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 3.83 and a quick ratio of 3.03. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a 1-year low of $18.50 and a 1-year high of $233.67. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $152.29 and its 200-day moving average price is $113.19.

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 the consensus estimate 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 firm had revenue of $151.14 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $156.98 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.02) EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 51.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q2 2026 guidance at -0.030-0.030 EPS. On average, equities research analysts predict that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post 0.6 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Stefan J. Murry sold 4,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $122.09, for a total value of $488,360.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 380,576 shares in the company, valued at $46,464,523.84. This represents a 1.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider David C. Kuo sold 29,227 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $166.53, for a total transaction of $4,867,172.31. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 149,078 shares in the company, valued at $24,825,959.34. The trade was a 16.39% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold 500,215 shares of company stock valued at $86,658,774 in the last 90 days. 3.80% of the stock is currently owned by 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.