Applied Optoelectronics share price today

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.'s share price was $50.13 at the close on 6 November 2026. It has been moving sideways for 5 weeks. That is 56.3% below its average price over the last 200 trading days. In the last 52 weeks it traded between $21 and $190, and at that close it sat 17% of the way up from that low.

A share price tends to move through four phases: moving sideways (stage 1), rising (stage 2), stalling near a high (stage 3) and falling (stage 4). Today Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. is in stage 1. The phase helps read everything below.

Over the past 13 weeks it has done worse than the S&P 500, and it has been behind for 18 weeks running.

Over the last 10 years the share price moved +344% while the S&P 500 moved +246%, so it is ahead of the index over that whole period. It was last ahead over 13 weeks in the week of 2 July 2026. The chart above shows the 13-week comparison for every week.

This page treats a rise as over when the price closes below its 200-day average on two Fridays in a row.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. pays no dividend. In the last 12 reported quarters it declared no dividend per share, so there is no payout history to chart and no yield to show. Companies like this usually keep their earnings in the business, so the cash-flow sections show where that cash goes.

Applied Optoelectronics is on one of our US lists: US tech stocks.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. earned $6.3 M of net profit in the Sep 2026 quarter. The full FY25 year was a loss of $38.2 M. That is 2.3% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier lost $17.9 M. 11 of the last 12 reported quarters were loss-making.

Net profit is what is left after every cost, interest and tax. Earnings per share, dividends and book value all grow from it.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. reported $270 M of revenue in the Sep 2026 quarter, +127.5% on the same quarter a year earlier. That is the 10th quarter in a row with growth on the year before. Over 4 years it has grown 21.1% a year on average. The last full year, FY25, came in at $456 M.

Revenue is everything the company billed its customers in the period.

The last four reported quarters add to $747 M.

FY25 revenue was $456 M, +82.8% on the year before.

Recent pace: the last four quarters grew +74.8% on average, against 21.1% a year over the longer run, so this year is growing faster than its own long-run rate.

Is growth speeding up? Revenue over the last 12 months grew +77.2%, against +88.8% a year over the last 8 quarters (rolling over).

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.'s operating margin was −0.5% in the Sep 2026 quarter, 14.8 percentage points higher than the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 years it has been between −28.4% and −12.0%. The latest quarter is above every full year in that period.

Operating margin is what is left from every $100 of sales after the costs of running the business, before interest and tax. It shows pricing power and cost control.

Why the margin moved: operating margin changed +14.8 percentage points on the year while gross margin changed +0.2 points. So the gain came mostly from costs below the gross margin, such as staff and overheads, measured against sales.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.'s cash-flow history is too short to judge how much of its profit turns into cash. In FY25 its operations used $174 M of cash, against −$38.2 M of profit. After $210 M of spending on assets, free cash was −$385 M: it spent more than its operations brought in.

The profit and loss account shows what was earned. The cash-flow statement shows the cash that actually came in. Comparing operating cash flow with profit is one of the best checks that a profit is real.

Cash-flow figures here are yearly, because quarterly cash statements are not published, so this section changes once a year.

What to look at next: the main use of cash is spending on assets. The next section checks what that spending is building.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. does not report the customer, stock and supplier day counts a cash cycle needs, so this section looks at its spending on assets instead. It spent $275 M on assets over the last 3 years. Averaged over those years that is 20.1% of FY25 revenue a year.

Working capital is the cash tied up between paying suppliers and getting paid. Debtor days: how long customers take to pay. Inventory days: how long stock sits. The cash cycle: the whole loop, in days of sales.

Nothing is estimated in place of the missing day counts, so no cash-cycle chart is drawn.

Spending on assets: $275 M over the last 3 years.

In short: the cash is going into new capacity, not getting stuck in the daily cycle. The question is whether the new capacity earns.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has no P/E right now, because its earnings are negative. The revenue and margin sections are where a turn would show first. Measured against sales instead, the market values Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. at 10.0× its FY25 revenue of $456 M. The P/E comes back here once profit turns positive.

P/E is the share price divided by a year's profit per share: how many dollars the market pays for each dollar of yearly profit.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.'s business trend cannot be read yet. There are fewer than eight usable quarters of growth figures, so there is not enough history to read the trend. This is based on 12 quarters of 2 measures, with some gaps.

Every business is somewhere on a path of getting better or worse, and this section names where. The last 12 quarters of growth in revenue, profit and earnings per share, plus the return the business earns on its capital, are read as lines. Getting worse: the lines are falling. Turning around: a low point has just formed and the last few quarters are rising from it. Getting better: the rise from the low has lasted. Growing steadily: steady growth with healthy returns. Slowing from a peak: still high, but slowing. When the lines disagree the result is mixed; too little history means no reading. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the steady yearly rate that would turn the starting value into the latest one. It is the fairest way to compare growth over different periods. If the 1-year figure is much bigger than the 10-year one, recent growth is running faster than the long-run trend. A dash means there is no figure for that period, or the starting year was a loss, where a growth rate means nothing.

Why it matters: with too little history, we say so rather than guess a direction.

There are fewer than eight usable quarters, so this page does not guess a direction from so little history.

Compound annual growth rate (%)

Compound annual growth rate over each period, %. Revenue, profit and EPS come from yearly figures; the stock price row is price growth over the same periods. A dash means no figure for that period, or the starting year was a loss.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. earned a ROE of −5% in FY25. That is up from a low of −82% in FY24. Its return on capital used (ROIC) is 27.2 percentage points below its cost of capital, so growth here does not yet pay for the capital it uses.

Return on equity (ROE) is the profit the business earns on its shareholders’ money. We do not have the full capital split, so ROE is the longest history we can draw here.

It comes from a −8.4% net margin and 0.39× asset turnover (sales divided by assets).

Why the return is what it is (FY25): a −8.4% net margin × 0.39× asset turnover × 1.59× leverage (assets divided by equity) ≈ −5.2% on equity. The margin does its share; borrowing plays a small part, so this return is earned, not borrowed.

The key test, return on capital used minus the cost of capital: −2.9% − 24.3% = −27.2 percentage points. The 24.3% is an estimate of this company's own cost of capital. Read the sign and size of the gap, not the decimals. Negative: growth at these returns loses value until returns improve.

The −2.9% ROIC above is the latest reading, as reported. The yearly chart below shows FY25 at −9.7%, and the quarterly chart works out each 12-month window from the quarterly figures, so the readings differ by date, not by method.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. has total debt of $350 M against shareholder equity of $2.2 B as of Sep 2026, so its debt is 0.16× its equity, which is very little. Year by year, that ratio went from 0.59 in FY21 to 0.34 in FY25. So the returns on this page come from the business, not from borrowed money.

Debt-to-equity shows how much of the business is paid for with borrowed money. Lower is safer, and the direction matters as much as the level.

18.8% of Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.'s tradable shares are in short positions, which are bets that the price will fall, so a large group of traders is betting against it. At normal trading volumes, closing those positions would take about 1.6 days. US companies do not publish a quarter-by-quarter list of owners, so this page uses short interest instead.

There is no quarter-by-quarter list of owners here, so we look at short interest: the share of tradable shares held in short positions, which gain if the price falls.

It is a single reading at one point in time; we do not have its history.

Why it is at this level: the figure does not say who has the short positions or why, so we show the level without guessing the story.

For Applied Optoelectronics, Inc., the Z-score is 5.19. A Z-score above about 3 is safe and below about 1.8 signals danger, so this is well clear of danger. It estimates how far the balance sheet is from trouble; it is not a forecast of failure.

The Z-score estimates how far a company is from balance-sheet trouble. Above about 3 is safe; below about 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not used for banks and lenders.

Why it matters: a Z-score of 5.19 is well clear of the danger zone, so the balance sheet is not the risk here.

40.8 out of 100, rank 21 of 29 in Communication Equipment, with 64% of the evidence available.

Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. scores 40.8 out of 100 against the 29 companies it is compared with in Communication Equipment, ranking 21. Earnings are strong; relative strength in its sector is -39% and the one-year return is 75.5%.

The four parts add up to the total exactly: 23.4 + 4.8 + 11.4 + 1.2 = 40.8. This is the same number shown on the industry page; it is worked out once for the whole group and read here.

What would change it: The score would fall if profit growth turns negative or margins stop improving while the share price lags its sector.

Applied Optoelectronics ranks 21 of 29 Communication Equipment companies on the 4-Factor Sector Score, with 40.8 out of 100.