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

Needham & Company LLC reiterated their buy rating on shares of AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) in a report published on Friday, Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $5.00 price objective on the semiconductor company’s stock.

Several other equities research analysts also recently issued reports on AXTI. Craig Hallum raised their price target on AXT from $3.75 to $5.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. B. Riley lifted their target price on AXT from $3.80 to $5.50 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Friday, April 5th. Wedbush restated an outperform rating and set a $6.00 price target on shares of AXT in a report on Monday, July 29th. Finally, StockNews.com cut AXT from a hold rating to a sell rating in a report on Wednesday, July 31st. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating and four have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $5.38.

AXT Stock Performance

NASDAQ AXTI opened at $2.37 on Friday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $3.55 and a 200 day simple moving average of $3.52. AXT has a 52-week low of $1.89 and a 52-week high of $5.64. The stock has a market cap of $105.23 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.92 and a beta of 2.28.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The semiconductor company reported ($0.04) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.06) by $0.02. The company had revenue of $27.92 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $26.50 million. AXT had a negative net margin of 14.75% and a negative return on equity of 5.85%. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.12) EPS. On average, analysts predict that AXT will post -0.2 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AXT

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. grew its stake in AXT by 28.7% in the 4th quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 11,200 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $27,000 after purchasing an additional 2,500 shares during the period. Byrne Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of AXT in the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. Brown Advisory Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of AXT in the 4th quarter valued at about $50,000. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in shares of AXT during the 1st quarter valued at about $52,000. Finally, Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. Ltd. bought a new position in shares of AXT during the 1st quarter valued at about $77,000. Institutional investors own 49.52% of the company’s stock.

About AXT

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.