Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Receives $78.77 Average PT from Brokerages

Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) have been given a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” by the thirteen research firms that are covering the firm, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have covered the stock in the last year is $78.77.

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Citigroup raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. BNP Paribas lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price target for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Northland Securities raised their price target on shares of Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Bank of America upgraded shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price target for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a report on Friday, December 13th.

Insider Activity

In other Ciena news, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $2,724,139.14. The trade was a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 16,912 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.96, for a total transaction of $1,436,843.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 59,347 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,042,121.12. This represents a 22.18 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 50,781 shares of company stock worth $4,298,500 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ciena

Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Ciena by 1.4% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $148,348,000 after purchasing an additional 33,074 shares during the period. Ritholtz Wealth Management acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $245,000. Merit Financial Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $421,000. Atria Investments Inc acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the third quarter valued at $1,988,000. Finally, FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 0.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,334,290,000 after acquiring an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CIEN opened at $85.12 on Thursday. Ciena has a 52 week low of $43.30 and a 52 week high of $101.44. The stock has a market cap of $12.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 149.33, a PEG ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 0.88. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $82.36 and its 200 day moving average price is $67.57. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.56 earnings per share. Ciena’s revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.