Royce & Associates LP Acquires Shares of 118,588 Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Royce & Associates LP bought a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 118,588 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $7,304,000. Royce & Associates LP owned about 0.08% of Ciena as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC lifted its position in Ciena by 119.9% during the second quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,054,000 after acquiring an additional 2,943,146 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings 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 worth $130,392,000 after purchasing an additional 523,313 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Ciena by 1,944.4% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,062,394 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $101,986,000 after purchasing an additional 1,961,513 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. boosted its stake in Ciena by 17.2% in the 2nd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,049,464 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $98,743,000 after purchasing an additional 301,390 shares during the period. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its holdings in Ciena by 7,767.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,966,414 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $94,742,000 after buying an additional 1,941,419 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on CIEN. 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 research report on Monday, October 28th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded 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. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, BNP Paribas lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and raised their price objective for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $63.08.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,552,877.04. This represents a 1.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. This represents a 2.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 9,200 shares of company stock worth $568,123. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Performance

Ciena stock opened at $67.22 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $9.71 billion, a PE ratio of 71.51, a P/E/G ratio of 5.46 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Ciena Co. has a 12-month low of $42.20 and a 12-month high of $73.47. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $63.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $54.69.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $928.31 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.36 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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

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.