Arizona State Retirement System Buys 679 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Arizona State Retirement System raised its stake in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 1.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 40,482 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 679 shares during the period. Arizona State Retirement System’s holdings in Ciena were worth $1,950,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Riverwater Partners LLC lifted its stake in Ciena by 0.9% during the 1st quarter. Riverwater Partners LLC now owns 26,281 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,300,000 after acquiring an additional 237 shares in the last quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Ciena by 4.6% during the 2nd quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,404 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $260,000 after acquiring an additional 239 shares in the last quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Ciena by 17.4% during the 2nd quarter. Harbor Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 3,465 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $167,000 after acquiring an additional 514 shares in the last quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank lifted its stake in Ciena by 2.1% during the 2nd quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 30,862 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,487,000 after acquiring an additional 632 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Treasurer of the State of North Carolina lifted its stake in Ciena by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Treasurer of the State of North Carolina now owns 65,784 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,961,000 after acquiring an additional 640 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on Ciena from $67.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 30th. Bank of America reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $59.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Morgan Stanley lifted their target price on Ciena from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Raymond James cut Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and lowered their target price for the stock from $59.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $59.15.

Ciena Price Performance

Ciena stock opened at $52.81 on Wednesday. Ciena Co. has a one year low of $39.94 and a one year high of $63.24. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $51.25 and a 200-day moving average price of $49.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 4.06 and a quick ratio of 2.99. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.78, a PEG ratio of 6.59 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 EPS for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.36 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 EPS for the current year.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total value of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 212,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,368,269.01. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Ciena news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total transaction of $130,962.48. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 96,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,635,840. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total value of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 212,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,368,269.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.83% 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.