Independent Financial Group LLC Acquires New Holdings in Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. $AAOI

Independent Financial Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAOI) in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund bought 7,638 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock, valued at approximately $646,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the business. Invesco Ltd. grew its position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 5,208.9% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 3,512,309 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $122,439,000 after purchasing an additional 3,446,150 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its position in shares of Applied Optoelectronics by 5,321.6% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,229,757 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $77,730,000 after purchasing an additional 2,188,630 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in 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 buying an additional 1,038,775 shares in the last quarter. Hawk Ridge Capital Management LP lifted its stake in Applied Optoelectronics by 106.2% in the 4th 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Artemis Investment Management LLP acquired a new stake in Applied Optoelectronics during the 4th quarter valued at $26,923,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 61.70% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Applied Optoelectronics Stock Down 7.3%

AAOI opened at $110.52 on Thursday. Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has a 12 month low of $18.50 and a 12 month high of $233.67. The business has a 50-day moving average of $154.12 and a two-hundred day moving average of $112.68. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.18, a current ratio of 3.83 and a quick ratio of 3.03. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -167.45 and a beta of 3.69.

Applied Optoelectronics (NASDAQ:AAOI) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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 return on equity of 4.64% and a negative net margin of 8.55%.The company 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 company earned ($0.02) earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 51.3% on a year-over-year basis. Applied Optoelectronics has set its Q2 2026 guidance at -0.030-0.030 EPS. On average, research analysts expect that Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. will post 0.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Applied Optoelectronics

In related news, CFO Stefan J. Murry sold 4,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, July 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $122.09, for a total value of $488,360.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 380,576 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $46,464,523.84. This trade represents a 1.04% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed 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 Applied Optoelectronics stock in a transaction on Friday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $166.53, for a total value of $4,867,172.31. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 149,078 shares in the company, valued at $24,825,959.34. The trade was a 16.39% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Over the last three months, insiders sold 500,215 shares of company stock worth $86,658,774. 3.80% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Applied Optoelectronics 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.