Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Invests $1.91 Million in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board acquired a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 38,640 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,911,000.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of CIEN. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the first quarter worth about $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the first quarter worth about $40,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter worth about $61,000. Finally, Neo Ivy Capital Management bought a new stake in Ciena in the 4th quarter worth approximately $154,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently weighed in on CIEN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on Ciena from $67.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. B. Riley dropped their target price on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 7th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Monday, June 3rd. Morgan Stanley upgraded Ciena from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $53.00 to $55.00 in a research report on Wednesday, June 12th. Finally, Citigroup started coverage on Ciena in a research report on Friday, April 12th. They issued a “sell” rating and a $44.00 target price for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $57.25.

Ciena Stock Down 0.5 %

CIEN stock traded down $0.23 during midday trading on Tuesday, hitting $50.24. The stock had a trading volume of 15,385 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,786,104. The firm has a market cap of $7.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.15 and a beta of 0.95. The business has a 50-day moving average of $48.17 and a two-hundred day moving average of $49.99. Ciena Co. has a 52-week low of $39.94 and a 52-week high of $63.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 3.88 and a quick ratio of 2.76.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 6th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.15 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $910.80 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $895.80 million. Ciena had a return on equity of 7.16% and a net margin of 3.71%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.59 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total transaction of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 212,421 shares in the company, valued at $10,368,269.01. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In related news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total value of $130,962.48. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 96,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total value of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 212,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,368,269.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 15,832 shares of company stock valued at $769,636. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

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.