Atria Investments Inc Acquires Shares of 32,283 Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Atria Investments Inc bought a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund bought 32,283 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $1,988,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC raised its position in Ciena by 119.9% in the 2nd quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $260,054,000 after buying an additional 2,943,146 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 24.0% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $130,392,000 after purchasing an additional 523,313 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in shares of Ciena by 1,944.4% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,062,394 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $101,986,000 after purchasing an additional 1,961,513 shares in the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Ciena by 17.2% during the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,049,464 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $98,743,000 after purchasing an additional 301,390 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in Ciena by 7,767.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,966,414 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $94,742,000 after purchasing an additional 1,941,419 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Ciena news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total value of $135,278.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,604,752.01. This trade represents a 2.36 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total transaction of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The trade was a 1.68 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 9,200 shares of company stock worth $568,123 in the last quarter. 0.83% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on CIEN shares. Rosenblatt Securities boosted 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. BNP Paribas cut Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Northland Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and set a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price objective for the company. in a report on Monday, October 28th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $63.08.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $69.71 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $63.48 and its 200 day moving average is $54.43. The stock has a market capitalization of $10.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 74.16, a PEG ratio of 5.76 and a beta of 0.94. Ciena Co. has a 12 month low of $42.20 and a 12 month high of $73.47. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

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. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the communications equipment provider to purchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

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.