Westfield Capital Management Co. LP Invests $35.40 Million in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Westfield Capital Management Co. LP bought a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund bought 574,814 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $35,403,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. Hoese & Co LLP acquired a new stake in Ciena during the 3rd quarter worth about $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 424.4% during the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 365 shares during the period. Canton Hathaway LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $40,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Ciena by 152.8% in the 3rd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $52,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares during the period. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in Ciena by 241.5% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,424 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $88,000 after purchasing an additional 1,007 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity at Ciena

In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total transaction of $236,005.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 199,997 shares in the company, valued at $13,485,797.71. This represents a 1.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total value of $135,278.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares in the company, valued at $5,604,752.01. The trade was a 2.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 10,489 shares of company stock valued at $657,051. Corporate insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CIEN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. Northland Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Citigroup upgraded Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Bank of America reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $59.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.08.

Ciena Stock Up 2.9 %

Ciena stock opened at $70.13 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Ciena Co. has a 1-year low of $42.20 and a 1-year high of $73.47. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $65.21 and its 200-day simple moving average is $55.37. The company has a market capitalization of $10.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 74.61, a P/E/G ratio of 5.54 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The business’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.36 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

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.