Oak Thistle LLC Makes New Investment in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Oak Thistle LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund bought 8,900 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $755,000.

Other hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Hoese & Co LLP bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the 3rd quarter worth $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 424.4% during the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 365 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 925.0% during the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. raised its stake in Ciena by 152.8% in the third quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $52,000 after buying an additional 512 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Kieckhefer Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $59,000. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 13,600 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $83.66, for a total transaction of $1,137,776.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 425,749 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,618,161.34. This trade represents a 3.10 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total transaction of $88,928.11. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 39,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 43,631 shares of company stock valued at $3,688,460 in the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $85.87 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The firm has a market cap of $12.20 billion, a PE ratio of 91.35, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $77.52 and its 200-day simple moving average is $63.78. Ciena Co. has a 52 week low of $43.30 and a 52 week high of $91.82.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). The firm had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.56 earnings per share. Equities analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena announced that its board has approved a share buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the communications equipment provider to reacquire up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have commented on CIEN shares. Stifel Nicolaus reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 price target (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Morgan Stanley lowered Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Citigroup boosted their price objective on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Bank of America raised shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $95.00 in a report on Friday, December 13th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Ciena presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $77.00.

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.