AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) Stock Falls 7% – Time to Sell?

AXT Inc (NASDAQ:AXTI) fell 7% during mid-day trading on Monday. The company traded as low as $72.63 and last traded at $73.4260. 1,706,556 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 83% from the average daily volume of 10,191,919 shares. The stock had previously closed at $78.94.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently commented on AXTI. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of AXT from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research note on Friday, August 14th. Needham & Company LLC upgraded AXT from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $90.00 price objective for the company in a report on Friday, July 31st. Northland Securities set a $125.00 target price on AXT in a research report on Wednesday, June 3rd. Zacks Research upgraded AXT from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, B. Riley Financial dropped their price target on AXT from $73.00 to $52.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have given a Buy rating, one has assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $77.00.

AXT Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $4.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 3,672.25 and a beta of 1.92. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $65.75 and a 200 day moving average of $74.30.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The semiconductor company reported $0.19 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.12. The business had revenue of $47.59 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $34.08 million. AXT had a net margin of 3.23% and a return on equity of 0.96%. AXT has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.300-0.320 EPS. Sell-side analysts predict that AXT Inc will post 0.8 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other AXT news, Director Leonard Leblanc sold 4,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $96.07, for a total transaction of $384,280.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 113,129 shares in the company, valued at $10,868,303.03. The trade was a 3.42% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. 5.97% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AXT

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of AXTI. California State Teachers Retirement System bought a new stake in shares of AXT during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $3,670,000. Bank of America Corp DE boosted its position in AXT by 112.0% in the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 776,300 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $44,234,000 after buying an additional 410,181 shares in the last quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC acquired a new stake in AXT in the first quarter valued at approximately $1,395,000. Rokos Capital Management LLP bought a new stake in shares of AXT during the first quarter worth $18,842,000. Finally, Swiss National Bank acquired a new position in shares of AXT during the first quarter worth $5,920,000. Institutional investors own 49.52% of the company’s stock.

AXT Company Profile

AXT, Inc (NASDAQ: AXTI) develops and manufactures compound semiconductor substrates used to produce high-performance electronic and optoelectronic devices. Its product portfolio includes gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), and germanium substrates, along with related materials and services supporting semiconductor manufacturing.

The company’s substrates are used in applications such as wireless communications, fiber-optic and data-center networking, optical sensing, laser devices, aerospace and defense systems, and solar cells.