Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells $577,048.00 in Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.86, for a total value of $577,048.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 412,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $34,974,964.14. The trade was a 1.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Ciena Stock Up 3.2 %

NYSE CIEN traded up $2.73 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $87.85. 2,297,691 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,692,704. The company has a 50 day moving average of $82.36 and a two-hundred day moving average of $67.57. The company has a quick ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 3.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm has a market cap of $12.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 154.12, a PEG ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 0.88. Ciena Co. has a 52-week low of $43.30 and a 52-week high of $101.44.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a net margin of 2.09% and a return on equity of 4.72%. The business had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.56 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently commented on CIEN. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 price target (up previously from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. 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 report on Monday, October 28th. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Northland Securities upped their price target on shares of Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ciena currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $78.77.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ciena

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CIEN. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Ciena by 1.4% during the 3rd 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 purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at $245,000. Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $421,000. Atria Investments Inc purchased a new stake in Ciena during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,988,000. Finally, FMR LLC raised its stake in Ciena by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,334,290,000 after purchasing an additional 108,407 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.