Dark Forest Capital Management LP Takes Position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Dark Forest Capital Management LP bought a new position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 4,740 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $228,000.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the fourth quarter worth approximately $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Ciena in the 1st quarter worth $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena in the first quarter valued at about $40,000. Canton Hathaway LLC bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the second quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, Covestor Ltd boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 339.5% in the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,213 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $60,000 after acquiring an additional 937 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.83% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research analysts have weighed in on the company. Raymond James downgraded Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and dropped their price target for the stock from $59.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. Northland Securities reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $46.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. B. Riley cut their price objective on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 7th. Finally, Barclays boosted their target price on Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.00.

Ciena Price Performance

NYSE:CIEN opened at $61.81 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 59.43, a PEG ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94. 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 business has a 50 day simple moving average of $53.81 and a 200-day simple moving average of $50.01. Ciena Co. has a 1 year low of $39.94 and a 1 year high of $63.24.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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 company had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.36 earnings per share. Ciena’s quarterly revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 EPS for the current 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.