AXT’s (AXTI) Buy Rating Reaffirmed at Needham & Company LLC

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI)‘s stock had its “buy” rating restated by Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $5.00 price objective on the semiconductor company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target would indicate a potential upside of 94.17% from the company’s current price.

AXTI has been the subject of a number of other research reports. StockNews.com cut shares of AXT from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research note on Monday, September 30th. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $6.00 price target on shares of AXT in a research report on Monday, July 29th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $5.38.

AXT Stock Down 6.7 %

Shares of AXTI opened at $2.58 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $2.48 and its 200 day moving average price is $3.02. The firm has a market capitalization of $114.54 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -8.05 and a beta of 2.23. AXT has a 12-month low of $1.89 and a 12-month high of $5.64.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 1st. The semiconductor company reported ($0.04) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.06) by $0.02. The business had revenue of $27.92 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $26.50 million. AXT had a negative return on equity of 5.87% and a negative net margin of 14.75%. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.12) earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that AXT will post -0.19 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of AXT

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. grew its position in AXT by 28.7% during the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 11,200 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $27,000 after acquiring an additional 2,500 shares during the last quarter. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. bought a new stake in shares of AXT during the first quarter worth $77,000. Empowered Funds LLC increased its stake in shares of AXT by 8.1% in the first quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 158,651 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $728,000 after buying an additional 11,900 shares in the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in shares of AXT in the first quarter valued at about $52,000. Finally, ClariVest Asset Management LLC acquired a new position in AXT during the 1st quarter worth about $743,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 49.52% of the company’s stock.

AXT Company Profile

AXT, Inc designs, develops, manufactures, and distributes compound and single element semiconductor substrates. The company offers indium phosphide for use in data center connectivity using light/lasers, high-speed data transfer in data centers, 5G communications, fiber optic lasers and detectors, consumer devices, passive optical networks, silicon photonics, photonic integrated circuits, thermo-photovoltaics, RF amplifier and switching, infrared light-emitting diode (LEDS) motion control, lidar for robotics and autonomous vehicles, and infrared thermal imaging.