Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Tuesday. Stock investors bought 3,297 call options on the company. This is an increase of 50% compared to the typical daily volume of 2,191 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have weighed in on CIEN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 4th. BNP Paribas assumed coverage on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, April 11th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 price objective for the company. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. Finally, Citigroup assumed coverage on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, April 12th. They set a “sell” rating and a $44.00 price objective for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $58.79.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of Ciena stock traded up $0.15 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $44.07. 411,856 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,986,590. 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 business has a 50-day simple moving average of $51.54 and a 200-day simple moving average of $48.20. Ciena has a 52-week low of $39.94 and a 52-week high of $63.24. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.37 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.53, a PEG ratio of 1.99 and a beta of 0.99.

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

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.80, for a total transaction of $186,636.80. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,109 shares in the company, valued at $17,252,883.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other Ciena news, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 3,156 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.74, for a total value of $144,355.44. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 51,171 shares in the company, valued at $2,340,561.54. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $44.80, for a total transaction of $186,636.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 385,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,252,883.20. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 107,189 shares of company stock valued at $5,754,880. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Ciena by 73.9% in the first quarter. Raymond James Financial Services Advisors Inc. now owns 30,814 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,524,000 after buying an additional 13,095 shares in the last quarter. PFG Investments LLC purchased a new position in Ciena in the first quarter valued at $301,000. Deepwater Asset Management LLC purchased a new position in Ciena in the first quarter valued at $1,587,000. Oak Thistle LLC purchased a new position in Ciena in the first quarter valued at $206,000. Finally, Harbour Capital Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Ciena by 4.2% during the first quarter. Harbour Capital Advisors LLC now owns 30,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,485,000 after purchasing an additional 1,225 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.