Rice Hall James & Associates LLC Acquires New Stake in Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. $AAOI

Rice Hall James & Associates LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) in the second quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm purchased 55,769 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,263,000.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Persistent Asset Partners Ltd bought a new position in Applied Optoelectronics during the second quarter valued at about $47,000. Tema ETFs LLC bought a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics in the second quarter worth about $62,000. Global Retirement Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics in the 2nd quarter valued at about $99,000. Allworth Financial LP lifted its holdings in Applied Optoelectronics by 1,923.7% in the 4th quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 769 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $27,000 after acquiring an additional 731 shares during the last quarter. Finally, NFSG Corp acquired a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics in the 1st quarter valued at about $85,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on AAOI. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Needham & Company LLC cut their target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics from $220.00 to $190.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, August 7th. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, August 8th. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and issued a $220.00 price target on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Finally, Raymond James Financial reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and issued a $178.00 price target on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Tuesday, August 11th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $139.40.

Insider Transactions at Applied Optoelectronics

In other news, insider Hung-Lun (Fred) Chang sold 40,329 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $170.60, for a total value of $6,880,127.40. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 286,124 shares in the company, valued at $48,812,754.40. This represents a 12.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 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 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 trade represents a 16.39% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 323,204 shares of company stock worth $55,700,961. 3.80% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Applied Optoelectronics Price Performance

AAOI stock opened at $154.89 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 2.78, a quick ratio of 2.13 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.12. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a one year low of $18.50 and a one year high of $233.67. The firm has a market capitalization of $13.10 billion, a PE ratio of -198.58 and a beta of 3.76. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $131.17 and a two-hundred day moving average of $123.06.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 6th. The semiconductor company reported $0.06 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $0.04. The company 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%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 86.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted ($0.16) earnings per share. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.110-0.260 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post 0.6 earnings per share for the current year.

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.