Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Shares Gap Up on Analyst Upgrade

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) gapped up before the market opened on Friday after Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on the stock from $80.00 to $95.00. The stock had previously closed at $84.52, but opened at $87.16. Needham & Company LLC currently has a buy rating on the stock. Ciena shares last traded at $88.78, with a volume of 704,051 shares trading hands.

Several other research analysts also recently commented on CIEN. Citigroup lifted their price objective on Ciena from $68.00 to $84.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, December 5th. Barclays lifted their price target on Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. BNP Paribas lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Bank of America raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Friday. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ciena presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $72.15.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total value of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. This represents a 2.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was 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 directly owns 39,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 10,489 shares of company stock worth $657,051. 0.83% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CIEN. FMR LLC lifted 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 purchasing an additional 108,407 shares in the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC grew its position in Ciena by 119.9% in the 2nd quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,054,000 after purchasing an additional 2,943,146 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in Ciena by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,439,478 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $273,427,000 after buying an additional 53,078 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in Ciena by 24.0% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $130,392,000 after buying an additional 523,313 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 1.4% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $148,348,000 after buying an additional 33,074 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Trading Up 4.9 %

The stock has a market capitalization of $12.81 billion, a PE ratio of 89.87, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.95. 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 $68.45 and a 200-day moving average price of $57.52.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.56 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the communications equipment provider to buy up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.