Key points
- Five Aehr Test Systems insiders sold 85,130 shares for $11.15 million on Aug. 12, 2026.
- President and CEO Gayn Erickson sold the most, 40,000 shares for about $5.23 million, all from a family trust.
- None of the five sales was filed under a Rule 10b5-1 plan. Each insider picked the trade date.
- AEHR is up over 500% in 2026, from $20.19 at the end of 2025 to near $135 on Aug. 14.
- The insiders sold at $130 to $133, below where the stock trades now.
A cluster of Form 4s hit the SEC on Aug. 13 for Aehr Test Systems (AEHR), a small semiconductor test company in Fremont, California. Five of them landed within an hour of one another, and every one reports a sale dated Aug. 12. What made me read all five was a single checkbox near the top of the form.
There's a box on a Form 4 that says whether a sale ran off a schedule set months in advance. On all five of these it sat blank.
The sellers are the whole top of the company. Gayn Erickson is the president and chief executive, and Adil Engineer is the chief operating officer. Rhea Posedel founded Aehr in 1977 and keeps a board seat today, and Geoffrey Scott and Laura Oliphant fill out the group as directors. Together they've sold 85,130 shares for $11.15 million at prices between $130 and $133.
| Insider | Role as filed | Shares sold | Value | 10b5-1 plan? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gayn Erickson | President and CEO | 40,000 | $5,233,714 | No |
| Adil Engineer | Chief Operating Officer | 15,000 | $1,965,374 | No |
| Geoffrey Scott | Director | 20,000 | $2,630,120 | No |
| Rhea Posedel | Director | 8,413 | $1,093,690 | No |
| Laura Oliphant | Director | 1,717 | $228,361 | No |
These sales read as deliberate, and the filings show the care behind them. Erickson sold his 40,000 shares out of a family trust and kept 197,521 in his own name. Engineer exercised a block of 2022 options priced at $9.45 and sold the same shares that day near $131. Scott sold 20,000 from his spouse's account and handed 6,731 more to a family gift fund. Posedel has owned Aehr stock since she started the company and let go of just 8,413 while keeping more than 435,000. They're booking real gains after a huge run, and they're keeping the bulk of what they own.
That box asks the filer to tick it when a sale was "intended to satisfy the affirmative defense conditions of Rule 10b5-1(c)," the SEC's own words for a plan set up ahead of time. A tick means the date got fixed months ahead of the trade itself. Leave it blank, and the seller chose the day. All five are blank, and Scott's filing even carries a footnote that his sale sat outside any plan. We've written up what that checkbox does for a shareholder in a separate piece.
The run they sold into
Start with the run. Aehr ended 2025 at $20.19, and on Aug. 14 it changed hands near $135, a gain of more than 500% on the year. The company builds the machines that test and burn in semiconductors, and its recent quarters have leaned hard on the two products Wall Street is paying up for, testers for AI processors and testers for silicon photonics. In mid-July Aehr posted a surprise quarterly profit and guided the new fiscal year well above the Street's estimates, and a stock that had been climbing for months climbed harder. It closed at $123.30 on Aug. 13 as the filings posted, then ran to $147.40 the next morning. All five insiders sold between $130 and $133, and the stock trades higher than every one of those prices today.
A Form 4 records the trade and leaves the reason off the page. People sell to cover a tax bill or to buy a house, and plenty sell simply because most of their wealth sits in one stock. A founder who has held since 1977 has every ordinary reason to take a little out. What the filings show cleanly is the timing and the choice. Five people at the top of Aehr looked at a stock up more than sixfold in a year and each picked Aug. 12 as the day to sell, on their own and off any plan. Fresh Aehr filings reach our insider tracker as they post, and it reads the plan box on each one. We ran the same count on another chip name, AXT, earlier this month.
Sources
- SEC Form 4 for Gayn Erickson filed Aug. 13, 2026 (accession 0001040470-26-000251), 40,000 shares on Aug. 12 at $130.7856 and $132.2674, held by trust, 197,521 shares held directly afterward, Rule 10b5-1 box unchecked
- SEC Form 4 for Adil Engineer filed Aug. 13, 2026 (accession 0001040470-26-000246), option exercise of 15,000 shares at $9.45 and sale of 15,000 shares at $130.9549 and $131.0950, Rule 10b5-1 box unchecked
- SEC Form 4 for Geoffrey Gates Scott filed Aug. 13, 2026 (accession 0001040470-26-000247), 20,000 shares at $131.506 held by spouse, plus a 6,731-share gift to Scott Family Gift Fund, Rule 10b5-1 box unchecked
- SEC Form 4 for Rhea J. Posedel filed Aug. 13, 2026 (accession 0001040470-26-000249), 8,413 shares at $130.00 held by trust, Rule 10b5-1 box unchecked
- SEC Form 4 for Laura Oliphant filed Aug. 13, 2026 (accession 0001040470-26-000245), 1,717 shares at $133.00, Rule 10b5-1 box unchecked
- All five filings for Aehr Test Systems (CIK 0001040470), period of report Aug. 12, 2026
- AEHR daily closing prices and 52-week range, Aug. 2025 through Aug. 14, 2026, low $16.38 on Aug. 20, 2025 and high $147.40 on Aug. 14, 2026
