Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Now Covered by Citigroup

Citigroup assumed coverage on shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) in a report issued on Friday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage issued a sell rating and a $44.00 target price on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

Several other brokerages also recently issued reports on CIEN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. BNP Paribas started coverage on Ciena in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. They issued an outperform rating and a $57.00 target price on the stock. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a buy rating in a research report on Monday, March 4th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an outperform rating in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Ciena from a sell rating to a hold rating in a research report on Friday, March 8th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have assigned a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $58.79.

Ciena Trading Down 2.8 %

Shares of CIEN opened at $44.33 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 3.12 and a current ratio of 4.29. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $52.72 and a 200 day moving average price of $48.26. Ciena has a one year low of $39.94 and a one year high of $63.24. The company has a market capitalization of $6.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.79, a P/E/G ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.99.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, March 7th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.66 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.18. Ciena had a return on equity of 9.92% and a net margin of 5.22%. The company had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.48 EPS. Ciena’s quarterly revenue was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 70,838 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.11, for a total value of $3,833,044.18. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 424,006 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,942,964.66. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. In related news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 70,838 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $54.11, for a total transaction of $3,833,044.18. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 424,006 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $22,942,964.66. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 8,332 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.86, for a total value of $473,757.52. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 415,674 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $23,635,223.64. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 99,867 shares of company stock valued at $5,423,887 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Ciena by 1.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,084,694 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $712,903,000 after purchasing an additional 155,964 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its holdings in Ciena by 4.3% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,940,640 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $422,535,000 after buying an additional 371,041 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. raised its holdings in Ciena by 7.9% during the fourth quarter. BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. now owns 5,021,719 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $226,028,000 after buying an additional 368,897 shares in the last quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. raised its holdings in Ciena by 8.6% during the third quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 4,652,822 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $219,893,000 after buying an additional 366,647 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp raised its holdings in Ciena by 0.7% during the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,262,245 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $223,853,000 after buying an additional 31,333 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

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.