Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Given Buy Rating at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC restated their buy rating on shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) in a report released on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a $95.00 target price on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

CIEN has been the topic of several other reports. Stifel Nicolaus reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Evercore ISI cut shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price objective for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. BNP Paribas lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their target price for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Morgan Stanley cut Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, Northland Securities increased their price objective on Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. 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, Ciena has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $77.00.

Ciena Stock Performance

NYSE:CIEN opened at $82.39 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $76.42 and its 200-day simple moving average is $62.83. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The stock has a market cap of $11.71 billion, a PE ratio of 87.65, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89. Ciena has a fifty-two week low of $43.30 and a fifty-two week high of $91.82.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its earnings results 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). The company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.56 earnings per share. Analysts expect that Ciena will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ciena announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase 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 purchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total value of $236,005.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 199,997 shares in the company, valued at $13,485,797.71. The trade was a 1.72 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 16,912 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.96, for a total value of $1,436,843.52. Following the sale, the director now owns 59,347 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,042,121.12. This represents a 22.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 47,131 shares of company stock valued at $3,924,465 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CIEN. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 925.0% during the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. Hoese & Co LLP bought a new position in Ciena during the 3rd quarter valued at $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. grew its holdings in Ciena by 424.4% during the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 365 shares in the last quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of Ciena by 152.8% in the 3rd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $52,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. grew its stake in Ciena by 241.5% in the third quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,424 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $88,000 after purchasing an additional 1,007 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% 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.