Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Sells 2,712 Shares of Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total value of $130,962.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 96,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE CIEN opened at $46.93 on Thursday. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $47.93 and a 200-day simple moving average of $49.56. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 3.88 and a quick ratio of 2.76. The company has a market cap of $6.74 billion, a PE ratio of 45.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.76 and a beta of 0.95. Ciena Co. has a 12 month low of $39.94 and a 12 month high of $63.24.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, June 6th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.27 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $910.80 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $895.80 million. Ciena had a net margin of 3.71% and a return on equity of 7.16%. Ciena’s revenue was down 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.59 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently commented on CIEN. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $52.50 to $54.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, June 7th. B. Riley decreased their price target on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, June 7th. Morgan Stanley raised Ciena from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $53.00 to $55.00 in a research note on Wednesday, June 12th. StockNews.com upgraded Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, March 8th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price target on Ciena from $63.00 to $55.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 7th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $57.25.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Ciena

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda purchased a new stake in Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena in the first quarter worth approximately $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in Ciena in the first quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Covestor Ltd increased its position in Ciena by 339.5% during the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,213 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $60,000 after purchasing an additional 937 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Ciena during the fourth quarter worth approximately $61,000. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.