Investors Purchase High Volume of Applied Optoelectronics Call Options (NASDAQ:AAOI)

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) saw some unusual options trading activity on Tuesday. Investors purchased 32,682 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 73% compared to the typical volume of 18,856 call options.

Insider Activity at Applied Optoelectronics

In other news, insider Shu-Hua (Joshua) Yeh sold 50,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $97.10, for a total transaction of $4,855,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 322,051 shares in the company, valued at $31,271,152.10. This represents a 13.44% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, insider David C. Kuo sold 29,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, March 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.13, for a total value of $2,903,770.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 82,663 shares in the company, valued at $8,277,046.19. This trade represents a 25.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last three months, insiders sold 326,333 shares of company stock worth $29,392,957. 4.50% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Applied Optoelectronics

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AAOI. Invesco Ltd. boosted its stake in Applied Optoelectronics by 5,208.9% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,512,309 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $122,439,000 after acquiring an additional 3,446,150 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 5,321.6% in the 4th 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 purchasing an additional 2,188,630 shares in the last quarter. Morgan Stanley raised its stake in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 157.1% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 1,699,855 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $59,257,000 after purchasing an additional 1,038,775 shares in the last quarter. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP lifted its position 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 worth $59,293,000 after purchasing an additional 875,903 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Artemis Investment Management LLP acquired a new position in Applied Optoelectronics in the fourth quarter worth about $26,923,000. Institutional investors own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AAOI has been the topic of several research reports. Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on shares of 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 set a $55.00 target price on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a report on Friday, February 27th. 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. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $50.00 price objective on shares of Applied Optoelectronics in a research report on Thursday, February 19th. Finally, Wall Street Zen upgraded Applied Optoelectronics from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, February 28th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $52.80.

Applied Optoelectronics Stock Up 14.0%

Shares of AAOI stock traded up $13.37 on Tuesday, hitting $109.13. The stock had a trading volume of 9,664,558 shares, compared to its average volume of 8,106,860. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $62.56 and its 200-day moving average is $41.41. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -168.16 and a beta of 3.19. Applied Optoelectronics has a 52-week low of $9.71 and a 52-week high of $128.96. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a quick ratio of 1.91 and a current ratio of 2.63.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 26th. The semiconductor company reported ($0.01) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.12) by $0.11. The firm 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%. The firm’s revenue was up 33.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted ($0.02) EPS. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q1 2026 guidance at -0.090-0.000 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Applied Optoelectronics will post -1.18 earnings per share for the current year.

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.