Needham & Company LLC Reaffirms “Buy” Rating for Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)‘s stock had its “buy” rating reaffirmed by investment analysts at Needham & Company LLC in a note issued to investors on Friday,Benzinga reports. They presently have a $95.00 price objective on the communications equipment provider’s stock. Needham & Company LLC’s target price would suggest a potential upside of 15.31% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other research firms also recently issued reports on CIEN. Morgan Stanley downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Monday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 target price on the stock. in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their target price on Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Citigroup upped their target price on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, BNP Paribas downgraded Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their target price for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Ciena has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $77.00.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of CIEN opened at $82.39 on Friday. Ciena has a 12 month low of $43.30 and a 12 month high of $91.82. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $76.79 and a 200-day moving average price of $63.19. 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 firm has a market cap of $11.71 billion, a PE ratio of 87.65, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.56 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. Equities research analysts predict that Ciena will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ciena announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the communications equipment provider to purchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In related news, Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 16,912 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.96, for a total value of $1,436,843.52. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 59,347 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,042,121.12. This trade represents a 22.18 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total transaction of $236,005.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 199,997 shares in the company, valued at $13,485,797.71. This represents a 1.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 47,131 shares of company stock valued at $3,924,465 in the last ninety days. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Hoese & Co LLP purchased a new position in Ciena in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. lifted its stake in Ciena by 424.4% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 365 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc lifted its stake in Ciena by 925.0% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Ciena by 152.8% in the 3rd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $52,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quarry LP lifted its stake in Ciena by 118.9% in the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,572 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $76,000 after purchasing an additional 854 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.