Brokerages Set Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Price Target at $67.15

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) has been assigned a consensus recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen research firms that are presently covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and seven have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month target price among brokerages that have covered the stock in the last year is $77.00.

Several equities analysts have weighed in on CIEN shares. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Evercore ISI lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price target on the stock. in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Northland Securities increased their price objective on shares of Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Bank of America upgraded Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Friday.

Ciena Trading Up 6.2 %

CIEN opened at $89.72 on Wednesday. Ciena has a fifty-two week low of $42.20 and a fifty-two week high of $91.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.96 billion, a PE ratio of 157.40, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.95. 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 company’s 50-day moving average is $68.91 and its 200 day moving average is $57.81.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). The company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Ciena will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ciena announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the communications equipment provider to purchase 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.

Insider Activity

In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 16th. The shares were 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 trade was a 1.68 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total value of $88,928.11. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 39,486 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 10,489 shares of company stock valued at $657,051 in the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Ciena by 0.5% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,334,290,000 after buying an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC raised its holdings in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 2,943,146 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Ciena by 1.2% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,439,478 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $273,427,000 after acquiring an additional 53,078 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 24.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $130,392,000 after purchasing an additional 523,313 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Ciena by 1.4% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $148,348,000 after purchasing an additional 33,074 shares during the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.