Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.
US ˙ NasdaqGM ˙ US03823U1025

Introduction

This page provides a comprehensive analysis of the known insider trading history of Min-Chu (Mike) Chen. Insiders are officers, directors, or significant investors in a company. It is illegal for insiders to make trades in their companies based on specific, non-public information. This does not mean it is illegal for them to make any trades in their own companies. However, they must report all trades to the SEC via a Form 4. Despite these restrictions, academic research suggests that insiders - in general - tend to outperform the market in their own companies.

Average Trade Profitability

The average trade profitability is the average return of all the open market purchases made by the insider in the last three years. To calculate this, we examine every open-market, unplanned purchase made by the insider, excluding all trades that were marked as part of a 10b5-1 trading plan. We then calculate the average performance of those trades over 3, 6, and 12 months, averaging each of those durations to generate a final performance metric for each trade. Finally, we average all of the performance metrics to calculate a performance metric for the insider. This list only includes insiders that have made at least three trades in the last two years.

If this insiders trade profitability is "N/A", then the insider either has not made any open-market purchases in the last three years, or the trades they’ve made are too recent to calculate a reliable performance metric.

Update Frequency: Daily

See the list of most profitable insider traders.

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Companies with Reported Insider Positions

The SEC filings indicate Min-Chu (Mike) Chen has reported holdings or trades in the following companies:

Security Title Latest Reported Holdings
US:AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. Director 22,500
How to Interpret the Charts

The following charts show the stock performance of securities subsequent to each open-market, non-planned trade made by Min-Chu (Mike) Chen. Non-planned trade are trades that were not made as part of a 10b5-1 trading plan. The stock performance is charted as cumulative percent change in share price. For example, if an insider trade was made on January 1, 2019, the chart will show the daily percent change of the security to the present day. If the share price were to go from $10 to $15 during this time, the cumulative percent change in share price would be 50%. A change in price from $10 to $20 would be 100%, and a change in price of $10 to $5 would be -50%.

Ultimately, we are trying to determine how closely the insider’s trades correlate to excess returns (positive or negative) in the share price in order to see if the insider is timing their trades to profit from insider information. Consider the situation where an insider was doing this. In this situation, we would expect either (a) positive returns after purchases, or (b) negative returns after sales. In the case of (a), the PURCHASE chart would show a series of upwardly sloping curves, indicating positive returns after each purchase transaction. In the case of (b), the SALE chart would show a series of downward sloping curves, indicating negative returns after each sale transaction.

However, this alone is not enough to draw conclusions. If, for example, the share price of the company was in a non-cyclical climb over many years, then we would expect all the post-purchase plots to be upwardly sloping. Likewise, non-cyclical declines over many years would result in downward sloping post-trade plots. Neither of these charts would suggest insider trading activity.

The strongest indicator would be a situation where the share price was extremely cyclical, and there were both positive signals in the PURCHASE chart and negative plots on the SALE chart. This situation would be highly suggestive of an insider that was timing trades to their financial advantage.

Insider Purchases AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. - Short Term Profit Analysis

In this section, we analyze the profitability of every unplanned, open-market insider purchase made in AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.. This analysis helps to understand if the insider consistently generates abnormal returns, and is worth following. This analysis is for one-year following each trade, and the results are theoretical.

The following table shows the most recent open market purchases that were not part of an automatic trading plan.

Trade Date Ticker Insider Reported
Shares		 Reported
Price		 Adjusted
Shares		 Adjusted
Price		 Cost Basis Days to
Max		 Price at
Max		 Max
Profit ($)		 Max Return (%)
2025-08-13 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 7,500 22.9100 7,500 22.9100 171,825 5 26.1300 24,150 14.05
2016-05-27 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 5,000 9.9500 5,000 9.9500 49,750
2016-05-25 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 5,000 10.0000 5,000 10.0000 50,000
2015-11-16 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 6,000 16.5000 6,000 16.5000 99,000

Adjusted Price is the split-adjusted price. Adjusted Shares is the split-adjusted shares.

AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. Insider Trades
Insider Sales AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. - Short Term Loss Analysis

In this section, we analyze the short-term loss avoidance of every unplanned, open-market insider sale made in AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc.. A consistent pattern of loss avoidance may suggest that future sale transactions may predict declines in price. This analysis is for one-year following each trade, and the results are theoretical.

The following table shows the most recent open market sales that were not part of an automatic trading plan.

Trade Date Ticker Insider Reported
Shares		 Reported
Price		 Adjusted
Shares		 Adjusted
Price		 Cost Basis Days to
Min		 Price at
Min		 Max Loss
Avoided ($)		 Max Loss
Avoided (%)
2024-11-29 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 9,790 40.0000 9,790 40.0000 391,600 143 10.0500 -293,210 -74.88
2017-03-03 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 5,000 52.0000 5,000 52.0000 260,000
2015-08-10 AAOI Chen Min-Chu (Mike) 1,000 22.0100 1,000 22.0100 22,010

Adjusted Price is the split-adjusted price. Adjusted Shares is the split-adjusted shares.

AAOI / Applied Optoelectronics, Inc. Insider Trades
Insider Trading History

This table shows the complete list of insider trades made by Min-Chu (Mike) Chen as disclosed to the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC).

File Date Tran Date Form Ticker Security Code 10b5-1 Shares Remaining Shares Percent
Change		 Share
Price		 Tran
Value		 Remaining
Value
2025-08-14 2025-08-13 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		P - Purchase 7,500 22,500 50.00 22.91 171,825 515,475
2025-06-17 2025-06-13 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 12,281 177,335 7.44
2024-12-03 2024-11-29 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		S - Sale -9,790 165,054 -5.60 40.00 -391,600 6,602,160
2024-06-25 2024-06-21 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 16,483 174,844 10.41
2023-06-28 2023-06-26 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 40,925 158,361 34.85
2022-06-29 2022-06-27 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 52,995 117,436 82.24
2021-06-15 2021-06-11 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 14,538 64,441 29.13
2020-06-16 2020-06-12 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 13,053 49,903 35.42
2019-06-04 2019-05-31 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 12,806 36,850 53.26
2018-06-12 2018-06-08 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 2,535 24,044 11.79
2017-06-12 2017-06-09 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 1,236 21,509 6.10 64.71 79,982 1,391,847
2017-03-07 2017-03-03 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		S - Sale -5,000 15,000 -25.00 52.00 -260,000 780,000
2016-06-08 2016-06-06 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 7,011 20,273 52.87
2016-05-27 2016-05-27 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		P - Purchase 5,000 20,000 33.33 9.95 49,750 199,000
2016-05-27 2016-05-25 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		P - Purchase 5,000 15,000 50.00 10.00 50,000 150,000
2015-11-18 2015-11-16 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common stock, $.001 par value 		P - Purchase 6,000 10,000 150.00 16.50 99,000 165,000
2015-08-12 2015-08-10 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		S - Sale -1,000 4,000 -20.00 22.01 -22,010 88,040
2015-08-12 3/A AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		5,000
2015-08-04 2015-07-31 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $.001 par value 		A - Award 2,827 13,262 27.09
2014-09-02 2014-08-08 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock 		A - Award 3,021 10,435 40.75
2013-11-18 2013-11-14 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock 		A - Award 5,500 5,500
2013-10-02 2013-10-01 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Series G Convertible Preferred Stock 		C - Conversion -1,914 0 -100.00
2013-10-02 2013-10-01 4 AAOI APPLIED OPTOELECTRONICS, INC.
Common Stock, $0.001 par value 		C - Conversion 1,914 1,914
P
Open market or private purchase of non-derivative or derivative security
S
Open market or private sale of non-derivative or derivative security
A
Grant, award, or other acquisition of securities from the company (such as an option)
C
Conversion of derivative
D
Sale or transfer of securities back to the company
F
Payment of exercise price or tax liability using portion of securities received from the company
G
Gift of securities by or to the insider
K
Equity swaps and similar hedging transactions
M
Exercise or conversion of derivative security received from the company (such as an option)
V
A transaction voluntarily reported on Form 4
J
Other (accompanied by a footnote describing the transaction)