Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Sells $135,278.00 in Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Trading Down 0.2 %

NYSE:CIEN traded down $0.14 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $61.45. The company had a trading volume of 1,728,380 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,782,814. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a current ratio of 4.06. Ciena Co. has a fifty-two week low of $39.94 and a fifty-two week high of $63.24. The firm has a market cap of $8.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 59.09, a P/E/G ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94. The business’s fifty day moving average is $54.24 and its two-hundred day moving average is $50.17.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $928.31 million. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. Ciena’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.36 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ciena

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its holdings in Ciena by 1,171.4% during the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 44,854 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $2,161,000 after acquiring an additional 41,326 shares in the last quarter. First Hawaiian Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena during the second quarter worth about $661,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 13.8% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,499,035 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $72,223,000 after purchasing an additional 181,358 shares in the last quarter. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $5,039,000. Finally, Capital Fund Management S.A. boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 67.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital Fund Management S.A. now owns 225,172 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,135,000 after buying an additional 90,610 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CIEN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley increased their price target on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, September 4th. B. Riley dropped their target price on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, June 7th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup upgraded Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Monday, September 23rd. Finally, Raymond James downgraded shares of Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and reduced their target price for the company from $59.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.00.

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.