Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Board Announces Stock Buyback Plan

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the communications equipment provider to repurchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CIEN has been the subject of several research reports. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on shares of Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price target on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Finally, B. Riley lowered their price objective on shares of Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 7th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.00.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of CIEN traded up $4.56 during mid-day trading on Wednesday, hitting $66.01. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,516,413 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,797,202. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a current ratio of 4.06. Ciena has a one year low of $39.94 and a one year high of $66.30. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $54.57 and its two-hundred day moving average is $50.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.49 billion, a PE ratio of 63.47, a price-to-earnings-growth 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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $928.31 million. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.36 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ciena will post 1.15 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,604,752.01. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total transaction of $196,840.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,552,877.04. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares in the company, valued at $5,604,752.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 9,200 shares of company stock worth $502,953 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

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.