Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Upgraded to Overweight at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) from a neutral rating to an overweight rating in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday morning, Marketbeat.com reports. The firm currently has $88.00 target price on the communications equipment provider’s stock, up from their prior target price of $84.00.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently commented on the stock. BNP Paribas cut shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 target price (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Bank of America raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $95.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Finally, Northland Securities upped their price objective on Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Ciena has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $78.77.

Ciena Trading Up 4.9 %

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $80.01 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $11.37 billion, a PE ratio of 140.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.70 and a beta of 0.89. Ciena has a 1 year low of $43.30 and a 1 year high of $101.44. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $81.10 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $66.60. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a current ratio of 3.55 and a quick ratio of 2.72.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). The company had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a net margin of 2.09% and a return on equity of 4.72%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.56 EPS. Research analysts predict that Ciena will post 1.59 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the communications equipment provider to buy up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other Ciena news, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total value of $88,928.11. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 39,486 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,724,139.14. The trade was a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.91, for a total transaction of $30,068.50. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 49,547 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,256,582.77. The trade was a 0.70 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 50,781 shares of company stock valued at $4,298,500. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of CIEN. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in 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 worth $148,348,000 after purchasing an additional 33,074 shares during the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 4th quarter worth $245,000. Merit Financial Group LLC purchased a new position in Ciena during the 4th quarter worth $421,000. Atria Investments Inc acquired a new position in Ciena during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,988,000. Finally, FMR LLC raised its stake in Ciena by 0.5% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,334,290,000 after buying an additional 108,407 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

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.