Stifel Nicolaus Reaffirms Buy Rating for Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)

Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) in a research note released on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. Stifel Nicolaus currently has a $82.00 target price on the communications equipment provider’s stock, up from their previous target price of $75.00.

CIEN has been the subject of a number of other research reports. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, December 5th. Evercore ISI lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Northland Securities restated a “market perform” rating and issued a $46.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Barclays lifted their target price on Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $67.15.

Ciena Stock Down 2.8 %

Ciena stock opened at $70.94 on Tuesday. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.25 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 75.47, a PEG ratio of 5.98 and a beta of 0.95. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $67.92 and a two-hundred day moving average of $57.22. Ciena has a twelve month low of $42.20 and a twelve month high of $75.11.

Ciena declared that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the communications equipment provider to reacquire up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity at Ciena

In other Ciena news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. This represents a 2.36 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total transaction of $196,840.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. This represents a 1.68 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 10,489 shares of company stock valued at $657,051. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Retirement Systems of Alabama lifted its position in shares of Ciena by 4.8% in the third quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 403,490 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $24,851,000 after purchasing an additional 18,426 shares in the last quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC boosted its position in Ciena by 75.8% during the third quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 8,315 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $512,000 after purchasing an additional 3,584 shares during the period. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Ciena by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Coldstream Capital Management Inc. now owns 4,742 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $292,000 after purchasing an additional 175 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Ciena by 1.4% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $148,348,000 after buying an additional 33,074 shares in the last quarter. Finally, M&T Bank Corp increased its holdings in Ciena by 68.5% in the 3rd quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 7,988 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $492,000 after buying an additional 3,246 shares during the period. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Ciena

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.