Traders Purchase High Volume of Call Options on Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) was the target of unusually large options trading on Friday. Traders bought 3,519 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 61% compared to the average daily volume of 2,182 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CIEN has been the subject of a number of research reports. Morgan Stanley lowered Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Evercore ISI cut shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Northland Securities raised their price target on shares of Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $77.00.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,552,877.04. The trade was a 1.68 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total value of $88,928.11. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 39,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,489 shares of company stock worth $657,051 in the last 90 days. 0.83% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CIEN. FMR LLC boosted its position in shares of Ciena by 0.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,334,290,000 after buying an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC boosted its position in Ciena by 119.9% during the 2nd quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,054,000 after acquiring an additional 2,943,146 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,439,478 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $273,427,000 after acquiring an additional 53,078 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 24.0% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $130,392,000 after purchasing an additional 523,313 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of 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 in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Trading Up 6.2 %

NYSE CIEN opened at $89.72 on Friday. Ciena has a 12 month low of $42.20 and a 12 month high of $91.25. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $68.91 and a 200 day simple moving average of $57.81. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a market capitalization of $12.96 billion, a PE ratio of 157.40, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.95.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.66 by ($0.12). The company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business’s revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.13 EPS for the current year.

Ciena announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the communications equipment provider to repurchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is 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.