Rothschild Investment LLC Sells 11,369 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Rothschild Investment LLC lessened its holdings in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 34.8% in the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 21,264 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 11,369 shares during the period. Rothschild Investment LLC’s holdings in Ciena were worth $1,803,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in CIEN. Point72 Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in shares of Ciena during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $57,861,000. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC acquired a new position in Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $56,997,000. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. bought a new stake in Ciena during the third quarter worth $40,416,000. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 3rd quarter valued at $35,403,000. Finally, LMR Partners LLP bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the 3rd quarter valued at $17,236,000. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Ciena Stock Performance

NYSE CIEN opened at $80.38 on Tuesday. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $86.42 and a 200 day simple moving average of $71.67. Ciena Co. has a twelve month low of $43.30 and a twelve month high of $101.44. The company has a market capitalization of $11.46 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 141.01, a PEG ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.88. The company has a quick ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 3.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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 company had revenue of $1.12 billion during 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%. Ciena’s revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.56 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CIEN has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. 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 cut shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 target price for the company. in a report on Monday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $84.00 to $88.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Bank of America raised shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Northland Securities raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $78.77.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.09, for a total value of $311,815.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 192,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,194,102.73. The trade was a 1.78 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 5,648 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.64, for a total value of $478,046.72. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 109,878 shares in the company, valued at $9,300,073.92. The trade was a 4.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 56,642 shares of company stock worth $4,818,176. Company insiders own 0.93% 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.