Ciena (CIEN) Set to Announce Quarterly Earnings on Thursday

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) will announce its earnings results before the market opens on Thursday, December 12th. Analysts expect the company to announce earnings of $0.66 per share for the quarter. Investors that wish to register for the company’s conference call can do so using this link.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.09. The firm had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $928.31 million. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The company’s revenue was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.36 EPS. On average, analysts expect Ciena to post $1 EPS for the current fiscal year and $2 EPS for the next fiscal year.

Ciena Stock Up 3.0 %

Shares of NYSE CIEN opened at $73.15 on Thursday. The firm has a market cap of $10.57 billion, a PE ratio of 77.92, a P/E/G ratio of 5.65 and a beta of 0.95. Ciena has a 12-month low of $42.20 and a 12-month high of $73.49. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $66.84 and its 200 day simple moving average is $56.40. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Ciena announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the communications equipment provider to buy up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CIEN has been the subject of a number of research reports. Evercore ISI lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on shares of Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on Ciena from $68.00 to $75.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. BNP Paribas downgraded Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their target price for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley cut Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 target price on the stock. in a report on Monday, October 28th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $64.23.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total transaction of $88,928.11. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 39,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,724,139.14. The trade was a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, 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 transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. This represents a 1.68 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 10,489 shares of company stock worth $657,051 over the last ninety days. Corporate 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.