AXT (NASDAQ: AXTI) stock surged after a rating upgrade from Craig-Hallum.
Craig-Hallum has upgraded its stance on AXT (AXTI) from Hold to Buy. The firm has also raised its price target (PT) from $2.25 to $3.75. The adjustment comes in response to AXTI’s recent earnings report, wherein the company beat market expectations in sales and earnings per share (EPS).
AXT reported revenue of $20.4 million, well above the consensus estimate of $17.6 million. Notably, revenue stood at $17.4 million in the third quarter of 2023 and $26.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Adjusted operating expenses decreased to $7.5 million from $9.0 million the previous year. However, the company faced a widened adjusted operating loss of $2.7 million compared to $0.3 million in the same quarter of the prior year.
AXTI reported an adjusted EPS loss of $0.07 in the fourth quarter, compared to the adjusted EPS of $0.05 in the fourth quarter of 2022.
The adjusted gross margin also saw improvement, coming in at 23.2% compared to 11.3% in the previous quarter but down from 32.5% in the fourth quarter of 2022. As of December 31, the company’s cash and cash equivalents stood at $52.3 million.
Morris Young, the chief executive officer, said,
“We believe that the trends that have driven our revenue and customer expansion remain very much intact, with new catalysts such as AI providing strong incremental opportunity. AI will drive up the need for massive data transfer requirements with increased bandwidth, low attenuation and low distortion. We believe this will result in increased demand for indium phosphide as the best platform for rapid data transfer.”
AXT (NASDAQ: AXTI) Stock Movement
AXTI stock shot up 69.30% to close at $3.86 on Friday. The traders had exchanged hands with 102,903,481 (102.90 million) shares compared to the average daily trading volume of 161.76K.
Edward Cooke is a financial analyst, freelance writer, and editor. He has six years of experience in financial journalism. He has an in-depth understanding of equities markets, tracking major indices and providing real-time analysis on stock price movements, corporate earnings, and market sentiment.
