Zacks Research Downgrades AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI) to Hold

Key Points

• Zacks Research downgraded AXT from “strong buy” to “hold.” MarketBeat’s analyst consensus is also “hold,” with an average price target of $77.00.
• AXT reported quarterly EPS of $0.19, beating the $0.07 consensus estimate, while revenue of $47.59 million exceeded the $34.08 million forecast. The company guided for third-quarter 2026 EPS of $0.30–$0.32.
• AXT shares opened at $77.41, down 1.0%, with a market capitalization of approximately $5.08 billion. Institutional investors own 49.52% of the company, while a director recently sold 4,000 shares.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI - Get Free Report) was downgraded by equities research analysts at Zacks Research from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report released on Tuesday, Zacks reports.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on AXTI. Needham & Company LLC upgraded shares of AXT from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $90.00 target price for the company in a research note on Friday, July 31st. Northland Securities set a $125.00 price target on AXT in a report on Wednesday, June 3rd. B. Riley Financial dropped their price target on AXT from $73.00 to $52.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Weiss Ratings raised AXT from a "sell (d-)" rating to a "sell (d+)" rating in a research note on Friday, August 14th. Finally, UBS Group set a $90.00 price objective on AXT in a research report on Friday, July 31st. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, AXT has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $77.00.

AXT Trading Down 1.0%

Shares of AXTI opened at $77.41 on Tuesday. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $67.17 and its 200-day simple moving average is $74.94. The firm has a market cap of $5.08 billion, a PE ratio of 3,870.50 and a beta of 1.92. AXT has a 12-month low of $4.00 and a 12-month high of $143.16.

AXT (NASDAQ:AXTI - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $34.08 million. AXT had a net margin of 3.23% and a return on equity of 0.96%. AXT has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 0.300-0.320 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that AXT will post 0.8 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director Leonard Leblanc sold 4,000 shares of AXT stock in a transaction on Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $96.07, for a total transaction of $384,280.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 113,129 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $10,868,303.03. The trade was a 3.42% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. 5.97% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of AXT

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in shares of AXT during the 2nd quarter worth $365,607,000. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. increased its holdings in AXT by 161.9% during the 1st quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 1,505,354 shares of the semiconductor company's stock valued at $85,775,000 after acquiring an additional 930,526 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE purchased a new position in AXT during the 2nd quarter valued at about $46,062,000. Ariose Capital Management Ltd acquired a new position in AXT during the first quarter worth about $39,061,000. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP purchased a new stake in shares of AXT in the second quarter valued at about $25,911,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.

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