Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Receives Average Recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from Analysts

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen analysts that are covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and ten have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $61.00.

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on CIEN shares. Northland Securities reissued a “market perform” rating and set a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Citigroup raised Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Monday, September 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. B. Riley cut their price target on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, June 7th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total value of $135,278.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,604,752.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 9,200 shares of company stock worth $502,953. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC lifted its position in Ciena by 119.9% during the 2nd quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,054,000 after acquiring an additional 2,943,146 shares during the period. Capital World Investors lifted its position in Ciena by 29.1% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 3,513,633 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $158,149,000 after acquiring an additional 791,215 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Ciena by 24.0% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $130,392,000 after acquiring an additional 523,313 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in Ciena by 1,944.4% during the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,062,394 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $101,986,000 after acquiring an additional 1,961,513 shares during the period. Finally, Victory Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Ciena by 17.2% during the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,049,464 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $98,743,000 after acquiring an additional 301,390 shares during the period. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $61.45 on Friday. Ciena has a 52 week low of $39.94 and a 52 week high of $63.24. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $54.24 and its 200-day simple moving average is $50.17. The firm has a market cap of $8.83 billion, a PE ratio of 59.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The firm had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.36 EPS. Ciena’s revenue was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena Company Profile

Ciena Corporation provides hardware and software services for delivery of video, data, and voice traffic metro, aggregation, and access communications network worldwide. The company's Networking Platforms segment offers convergence of coherent optical transport, open optical networking, optical transport network switching, IP routing, and switching services.