Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Sells 3,500 Shares of Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total transaction of $236,005.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 199,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,485,797.71. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $66.51 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $58.38 and a 200-day moving average of $51.54. The company has a market cap of $9.56 billion, a PE ratio of 63.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 8.83 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Ciena Co. has a 1-year low of $39.94 and a 1-year high of $69.91.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share 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 firm had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $928.31 million. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.36 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ciena declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the communications equipment provider to reacquire up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Trust Point Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Ciena during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $224,000. Harbour Capital Advisors LLC boosted its position in Ciena by 3.1% in the third quarter. Harbour Capital Advisors LLC now owns 31,475 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,124,000 after buying an additional 955 shares in the last quarter. Petredis Investment Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena during the third quarter worth $274,000. SWS Partners increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 70.6% during the third quarter. SWS Partners now owns 37,354 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $2,301,000 after buying an additional 15,457 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Creative Planning lifted its stake in shares of Ciena by 65.0% in the 3rd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 14,516 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $894,000 after acquiring an additional 5,717 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have issued reports on CIEN. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on Ciena from $68.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Northland Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and issued a $46.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $65.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $63.08.

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.