Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Hits New 12-Month High Following Analyst Upgrade

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday after Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on the stock from $75.00 to $80.00. Needham & Company LLC currently has a buy rating on the stock. Ciena traded as high as $73.49 and last traded at $73.16, with a volume of 407681 shares changing hands. The stock had previously closed at $71.05.

Several other brokerages have also weighed in on CIEN. Bank of America reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $59.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Barclays raised their price objective on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 7th. 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. Finally, Evercore ISI lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $64.23.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were 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 in the company, valued at $5,604,752.01. This trade represents a 2.36 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total transaction of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. This trade represents a 1.68 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 10,489 shares of company stock worth $657,051. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ciena

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. FMR LLC boosted its position in 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 during the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC boosted its holdings in shares of 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 valued at $260,054,000 after buying an additional 2,943,146 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 1.2% in the third 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 in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Ciena by 24.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $130,392,000 after buying an additional 523,313 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in Ciena by 1.4% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $148,348,000 after acquiring an additional 33,074 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Ciena Trading Up 2.9 %

The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $66.84 and its 200 day simple moving average is $56.40. The stock has a market cap of $10.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 77.92, a PEG ratio of 5.65 and a beta of 0.95. 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 (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, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The company had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $928.31 million. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.36 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ciena declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback plan 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 repurchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication 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.