Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) Insider Sells $6,783,822.04 in Stock

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) insider Shu-Hua (Joshua) Yeh sold 39,154 shares of Applied Optoelectronics stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $173.26, for a total value of $6,783,822.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 462,430 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $80,120,621.80. This trade represents a 7.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards.

Shu-Hua (Joshua) Yeh also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, March 9th, Shu-Hua (Joshua) Yeh sold 50,000 shares of Applied Optoelectronics stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.10, for a total value of $4,855,000.00.

Applied Optoelectronics Stock Down 1.1%

NASDAQ:AAOI traded down $1.93 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, reaching $171.33. The stock had a trading volume of 8,941,358 shares, compared to its average volume of 11,914,948. The company has a market capitalization of $13.75 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -259.59 and a beta of 3.76. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a 1-year low of $15.06 and a 1-year high of $233.67. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $135.43 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $73.08. 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 (NASDAQ:AAOI) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The semiconductor company reported ($0.07) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.05) by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $151.14 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $156.98 million. Applied Optoelectronics had a negative return on equity of 4.64% and a negative net margin of 8.55%.The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 51.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted ($0.02) earnings per share. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q2 2026 guidance at -0.030-0.030 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post 0.66 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Applied Optoelectronics

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 7.7% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,982,660 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $173,696,000 after buying an additional 358,090 shares during the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 5,208.9% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,512,309 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $122,439,000 after buying an additional 3,446,150 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 5,321.6% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,229,757 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $77,730,000 after buying an additional 2,188,630 shares during the last quarter. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP raised its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 106.2% during the fourth 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. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 157.1% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,699,855 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $59,257,000 after buying an additional 1,038,775 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

AAOI has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. B. Riley Financial raised shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $54.00 target price on the stock in a report on Friday, February 27th. Northland Securities reissued a “market perform” rating and issued a $55.00 target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Friday, February 27th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Wednesday, January 21st. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics from $43.00 to $80.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 27th. Finally, Raymond James Financial reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $160.00 target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Friday, May 8th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $79.80.

Applied Optoelectronics News Summary

Here are the key news stories impacting Applied Optoelectronics this week:

• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Chih-Hsiang (Thompson) Lin sold 58,000 shares, CFO Stefan J. Murry sold 33,000 shares, and other insiders also sold stock, but the company said the transactions were tied to tax withholding on equity award vesting.
• Neutral Sentiment: Applied Optoelectronics recently filed a prospectus supplement for a $600 million at-the-market stock offering, which raised investor concerns about potential dilution and added a near-term overhang.
• Neutral Sentiment: Analyst commentary remains constructive overall, with recent buy ratings and a bullish thesis tied to strong hyperscaler demand for AI optical infrastructure and expanding demand for 800G and 1.6T optics.
• Negative Sentiment: The stock has also been hit by profit-taking after a sharp run-up, with market commentary noting that AAOI and other AI optics names are pulling back as investors lock in gains.

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.