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

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reiterated by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a research note issued on Friday, Benzinga reports. They presently have a $5.00 price objective on the semiconductor company’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s price target points to a potential upside of 37.74% from the company’s previous close.

AXTI has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Craig Hallum upped their price objective on shares of AXT from $3.75 to $5.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, April 9th. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $6.00 price objective on shares of AXT in a research note on Monday, April 8th. B. Riley increased their target price on AXT from $3.80 to $5.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, April 5th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of AXT from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, March 2nd. 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 MarketBeat, AXT presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $5.38.

AXT Stock Performance

AXTI opened at $3.63 on Friday. AXT has a fifty-two week low of $1.89 and a fifty-two week high of $5.64. The company has a fifty day moving average of $4.03 and a two-hundred day moving average of $2.92. The stock has a market capitalization of $160.63 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.05 and a beta of 2.28.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, May 2nd. The semiconductor company reported ($0.05) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.08) by $0.03. AXT had a negative return on equity of 7.80% and a negative net margin of 23.59%. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned ($0.08) earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that AXT will post -0.1 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of AXT

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AXTI. First Wilshire Securities Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of AXT by 30.8% during the 4th quarter. First Wilshire Securities Management Inc. now owns 3,306,715 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $7,936,000 after buying an additional 779,548 shares in the last quarter. Pacific Ridge Capital Partners LLC raised its position in AXT by 1.8% in the third quarter. Pacific Ridge Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,232,069 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $2,957,000 after acquiring an additional 21,973 shares in the last quarter. White Pine Capital LLC raised its position in AXT by 35.9% in the fourth quarter. White Pine Capital LLC now owns 612,630 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $1,470,000 after acquiring an additional 161,893 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. lifted its holdings in AXT by 47.0% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 465,948 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock valued at $1,118,000 after acquiring an additional 149,048 shares during the period. Finally, GSA Capital Partners LLP grew its stake in shares of AXT by 127.3% during the 3rd quarter. GSA Capital Partners LLP now owns 377,321 shares of the semiconductor company’s stock worth $906,000 after purchasing an additional 211,351 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.