Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) Shares Up 6.9% – Should You Buy?

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI)’s share price was up 6.9% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $146.94 and last traded at $152.3760. Approximately 1,379,176 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 85% from the average daily volume of 9,231,042 shares. The stock had previously closed at $142.55.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on AAOI. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $50.00 price target on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Thursday, February 19th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Wednesday, January 21st. B. Riley Financial raised shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $54.00 price target for the company in a research report on Friday, February 27th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on shares of Applied Optoelectronics from $43.00 to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 27th. 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 company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $52.80.

Applied Optoelectronics Trading Up 3.0%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 2.63 and a quick ratio of 1.91. The company has a market capitalization of $11.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -226.73 and a beta of 3.23. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $88.75 and its 200 day simple moving average is $51.86.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last posted 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. The company had revenue of $134.27 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $131.56 million. Applied Optoelectronics had a negative net margin of 8.39% and a negative return on equity of 5.29%. Applied Optoelectronics’s quarterly revenue was up 33.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.02) earnings per share. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q1 2026 guidance at -0.090-0.000 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post -1.18 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Applied Optoelectronics news, insider Shu-Hua (Joshua) Yeh sold 50,000 shares of Applied Optoelectronics stock in a transaction on Monday, March 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.10, for a total value of $4,855,000.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 322,051 shares in the company, valued at approximately $31,271,152.10. The trade was a 13.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Cynthia Delaney sold 21,000 shares of Applied Optoelectronics stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $98.02, for a total transaction of $2,058,420.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 116,222 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,392,080.44. This represents a 15.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 326,333 shares of company stock valued at $29,802,706 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 4.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Cinctive Capital Management LP acquired a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics during the third quarter worth about $800,000. Diker Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics during the third quarter worth about $519,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 13.6% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,624,570 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $119,915,000 after acquiring an additional 551,910 shares during the period. AI Squared Management Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics during the third quarter worth about $5,043,000. Finally, Trilogy Capital Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics during the fourth quarter worth about $235,000. 61.70% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.