Needham & Company LLC Reiterates “Buy” Rating for AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI)

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reissued by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research report issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $5.00 target price on the semiconductor company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target suggests a potential upside of 136.97% from the company’s current price.

AXTI has been the subject of several other research reports. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $6.00 price objective on shares of AXT in a research report on Monday, July 29th. StockNews.com cut AXT from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Monday, September 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $5.30.

AXT Stock Performance

NASDAQ:AXTI opened at $2.11 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $2.46 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $3.01. The stock has a market capitalization of $93.86 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -6.59 and a beta of 2.23. AXT has a 1 year low of $1.89 and a 1 year 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, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.06) by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $27.92 million during 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 quarter in the prior year, the business posted ($0.12) earnings per share. On average, analysts predict that AXT will post -0.19 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AXTI. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. increased its position in shares of AXT by 28.7% in the fourth quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 11,200 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $27,000 after buying an additional 2,500 shares in the last quarter. Byrne Asset Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of AXT by 125.0% during the second quarter. Byrne Asset Management LLC now owns 13,500 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $48,000 after acquiring an additional 7,500 shares during the last quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of AXT during the first quarter valued at $52,000. Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. acquired a new stake in shares of AXT during the first quarter valued at $77,000. Finally, State Board of Administration of Florida Retirement System acquired a new stake in shares of AXT during the first quarter valued at $93,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.