Gary B. Smith Sells 6,800 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.29, for a total value of $579,972.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 418,949 shares in the company, valued at $35,732,160.21. The trade was a 1.60 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Stock Up 1.1 %

CIEN stock opened at $84.96 on Friday. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $78.40 and its 200 day simple moving average is $64.33. Ciena Co. has a 1-year low of $43.30 and a 1-year high of $91.82. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.07 billion, a PE ratio of 149.06, a PEG ratio of 1.49 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings data 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 company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a net margin of 2.09% and a return on equity of 4.72%. Ciena’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.56 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.57 EPS for the current year.

Ciena announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the communications equipment provider to repurchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CIEN. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Ciena by 0.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,334,290,000 after purchasing an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC increased 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 buying an additional 2,943,146 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 1.2% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,439,478 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $273,427,000 after buying an additional 53,078 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in shares of Ciena by 24.0% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $130,392,000 after acquiring an additional 523,313 shares during the period. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake 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 acquiring an additional 33,074 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on CIEN. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Bank of America upgraded Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a report on Friday, December 13th. 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 report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, Northland Securities raised their price target on Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $77.00.

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.