AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) Shares Gap Down – Here’s What Happened

AXT Inc (NASDAQ:AXTI)’s share price gapped down before the market opened on Wednesday. The stock had previously closed at $84.06, but opened at $79.78. AXT shares last traded at $80.4280, with a volume of 1,866,394 shares.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

AXTI has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC raised AXT from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $90.00 price target on the stock in a report on Friday, July 31st. B. Riley Financial cut their price objective on AXT from $73.00 to $52.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. UBS Group set a $90.00 price objective on shares of AXT in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Zacks Research downgraded shares of AXT from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 29th. Finally, Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of AXT from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (d+)” rating in a research report on Friday, August 14th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $77.00.

AXT Price Performance

The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $70.12 and a 200-day simple moving average of $75.98. The stock has a market cap of $5.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 4,083.10 and a beta of 1.86.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, July 30th. The semiconductor company reported $0.19 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.07 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $47.59 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $34.08 million. AXT had a return on equity of 0.96% and a net margin of 3.23%.AXT has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.300-0.320 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that AXT Inc will post 0.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other AXT news, Director Leonard Leblanc sold 4,000 shares of AXT 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 transaction, the director directly owned 113,129 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,868,303.03. This trade represents a 3.42% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 5.97% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On AXT

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. BlackRock Inc. purchased a new position in AXT in the 2nd quarter worth $365,607,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its position in AXT by 161.9% during the first quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 1,505,354 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $85,775,000 after buying an additional 930,526 shares during the period. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in shares of AXT during the second quarter valued at about $46,062,000. Ariose Capital Management Ltd purchased a new position in shares of AXT in the first quarter worth about $39,061,000. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP purchased a new position in shares of AXT in the second quarter worth about $25,911,000. Institutional investors own 49.52% of the company’s stock.

AXT Company Profile

AXT, Inc (NASDAQ: AXTI) develops and manufactures compound semiconductor substrate materials used in high-performance electronic and optoelectronic devices. Its primary products include gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), and germanium substrates, which serve as the foundation for semiconductor components.

The company’s substrates are used in applications such as fiber-optic communications, data-center and telecommunications equipment, wireless infrastructure, radio-frequency devices, lasers, light-emitting diodes, and certain solar cells.