Ciena’s (CIEN) “Buy” Rating Reiterated at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) in a report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a $95.00 price objective on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

Other research analysts also recently issued reports about the company. 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. Evercore ISI lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Barclays upped their target price on Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $77.00.

Ciena Price Performance

Ciena stock opened at $82.39 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $11.71 billion, a PE ratio of 87.65, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89. 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 stock has a 50-day moving average price of $76.79 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $63.29. Ciena has a 12 month low of $43.30 and a 12 month high of $91.82.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its earnings results 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 return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.56 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Ciena will post 1.13 EPS for the current year.

Ciena announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the communications equipment provider to buy up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total value of $236,005.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 199,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,485,797.71. This represents a 1.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 39,486 shares in the company, valued at $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 47,131 shares of company stock worth $3,924,465 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CIEN. Fulton Bank N.A. boosted its holdings in Ciena by 11.6% during the fourth quarter. Fulton Bank N.A. now owns 8,279 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $702,000 after purchasing an additional 861 shares during the last quarter. Everence Capital Management Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Ciena in the 4th quarter worth approximately $235,000. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 27.7% in the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,109 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $179,000 after acquiring an additional 458 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc grew its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 296 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama increased its position in shares of Ciena by 4.8% during the third quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 403,490 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $24,851,000 after acquiring an additional 18,426 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Company 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.