Empowered Funds LLC Invests $263,000 in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Empowered Funds LLC bought a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The fund bought 3,099 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $263,000.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Versant Capital Management Inc grew its position in shares of Ciena by 925.0% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares during the period. Kieckhefer Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $59,000. UMB Bank n.a. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 59.2% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 718 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $61,000 after purchasing an additional 267 shares during the period. First Horizon Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 152.8% in the 3rd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $52,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares during the period. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 241.5% in the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,424 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $88,000 after purchasing an additional 1,007 shares during the period. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ciena Stock Down 2.7 %

CIEN stock opened at $84.15 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.00 billion, a PE ratio of 147.63, a PEG ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 0.88. Ciena Co. has a 1-year low of $43.30 and a 1-year high of $101.44. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $86.64 and its 200 day simple moving average is $71.10.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its 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). The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The firm’s revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.56 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ciena news, SVP Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.16, for a total value of $31,556.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 49,197 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,435,601.52. This represents a 0.71 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 16,912 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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 completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 59,347 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,042,121.12. This represents a 22.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 56,642 shares of company stock valued at $4,818,176. 0.93% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently issued reports on CIEN. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $95.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, January 10th. Barclays boosted their target price on Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Ciena from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $84.00 to $88.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Monday, October 28th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $78.77.

Ciena 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.