Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Board of Directors Initiates Share Buyback Plan

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) announced that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, October 2nd, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the communications equipment provider to purchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on CIEN shares. Barclays increased their target price on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Bank of America restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $59.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on shares of Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Northland Securities reiterated a “market perform” rating and set a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.00.

Ciena Price Performance

Ciena stock traded up $4.56 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $66.01. 4,516,413 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,797,202. Ciena has a 12-month low of $39.94 and a 12-month high of $66.30. The company has a market capitalization of $9.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 63.47, a PEG ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $54.57 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $50.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 4.06 and a quick ratio of 2.99.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.36 EPS. Analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena 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 sale, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was 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 directly owns 91,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total transaction of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 9,200 shares of company stock valued at $502,953 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.83% 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.