Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. Invests $204,000 in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Stratos Wealth Partners LTD. acquired a new stake in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor acquired 2,405 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $204,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CIEN. Versant Capital Management Inc raised its position in Ciena by 925.0% in the fourth 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 last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. raised its position in Ciena by 152.8% in the third 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 last quarter. Kieckhefer Group LLC bought a new position in Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at about $59,000. UMB Bank n.a. raised its position in shares of Ciena by 59.2% during the fourth quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 718 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $61,000 after acquiring an additional 267 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. raised its position in shares of Ciena by 241.5% during the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,424 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $88,000 after acquiring an additional 1,007 shares during the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $95.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and set a $82.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Morgan Stanley downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Barclays lifted their target price on Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $78.77.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.86, for a total transaction of $577,048.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 412,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $34,974,964.14. The trade was a 1.62 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.91, for a total value of $30,068.50. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 49,547 shares in the company, valued at $4,256,582.77. This trade represents a 0.70 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 56,292 shares of company stock valued at $4,786,620. Corporate insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Up 0.7 %

CIEN stock opened at $89.45 on Friday. Ciena Co. has a twelve month low of $43.30 and a twelve month high of $101.44. The company has a quick ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 3.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm has a market cap of $12.71 billion, a PE ratio of 156.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.66 and a beta of 0.88. The business has a 50 day moving average of $85.74 and a 200 day moving average of $69.80.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its 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 business had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.56 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.