WINTON GROUP Ltd Invests $729,000 in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

WINTON GROUP Ltd purchased a new stake in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor purchased 15,132 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $729,000.

A number of other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda acquired a new position in Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the first quarter worth $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new position in Ciena in the first quarter valued at about $40,000. Canton Hathaway LLC bought a new stake in Ciena during the second quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, Covestor Ltd grew its stake 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 buying an additional 937 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CIEN has been the subject of several analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their target price on shares of Ciena from $67.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 30th. B. Riley cut their target price on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, June 7th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Ciena from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating and nine have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ciena presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $59.15.

Ciena Stock Performance

NYSE:CIEN opened at $56.45 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $51.88 and its 200-day moving average is $49.80. Ciena Co. has a 1-year low of $39.94 and a 1-year high of $63.24. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The stock has a market cap of $8.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 54.28, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.86 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $928.31 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.36 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

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

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.