Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) to Repurchase $1.00 billion in Shares

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the communications equipment provider to buy up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on CIEN shares. Citigroup raised Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Monday, September 23rd. Raymond James lowered Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $59.00 to $54.00 in a report on Thursday, June 6th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on shares of Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Barclays lifted their price objective 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. Finally, Northland Securities reissued a “market perform” rating and set a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.00.

Ciena Stock Up 7.4 %

CIEN stock opened at $66.01 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $54.57 and its 200-day simple moving average is $50.28. Ciena has a 52-week low of $39.94 and a 52-week high of $66.30. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 4.06 and a quick ratio of 2.99. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.49 billion, a P/E ratio of 63.47, a P/E/G ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94.

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. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The company had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.36 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Ciena will post 1.15 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,604,752.01. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the business’s 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 sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,604,752.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 9,200 shares of company stock worth $502,953. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.