Maverick Capital Ltd. Takes Position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Maverick Capital Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund bought 35,841 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,727,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in CIEN. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda acquired a new position in Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena during the first quarter worth approximately $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena during the first quarter worth approximately $40,000. Canton Hathaway LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena in the second quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Finally, Covestor Ltd increased its stake in shares of 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 period. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on CIEN shares. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Raymond James downgraded shares of Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and decreased their price target for the company from $59.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Finally, Northland Securities reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $46.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.00.

Insider Activity at Ciena

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the 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 completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 212,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,368,269.01. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $10,368,269.01. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total value of $130,962.48. Following 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. In the last three months, insiders have sold 9,712 shares of company stock valued at $498,637. 0.83% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Ciena Trading Down 1.0 %

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $61.81 on Friday. Ciena Co. has a fifty-two week low of $39.94 and a fifty-two week high of $63.24. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $53.81 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $50.03. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a current ratio of 4.06. The company has a market cap of $8.93 billion, a PE ratio of 59.43, a P/E/G ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94.

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

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.