Brokerages Set Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) PT at $77.00

Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) have received an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen brokerages that are covering the company, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and seven have assigned a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price target among brokerages that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $77.00.

A number of equities analysts have commented on CIEN shares. 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. Northland Securities boosted their target price on Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. BNP Paribas lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 9th. Bank of America upgraded Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price objective on the stock. in a research note on Monday, October 7th.

Ciena Trading Down 3.1 %

Shares of CIEN opened at $81.91 on Friday. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $75.69 and a 200-day simple moving average of $62.56. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The stock has a market cap of $11.64 billion, a PE ratio of 87.14, a PEG ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89. Ciena has a 1 year low of $43.30 and a 1 year high of $91.82.

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

Ciena declared that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the communications equipment provider to repurchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Dino Diperna sold 2,682 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.64, for a total transaction of $235,050.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,607 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,435,197.48. The trade was a 5.03 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total transaction of $236,005.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 199,997 shares in the company, valued at $13,485,797.71. This represents a 1.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 30,219 shares of company stock valued at $2,487,621. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CIEN. Everence Capital Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter worth about $235,000. GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in Ciena by 27.7% in the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,109 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $179,000 after acquiring an additional 458 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc boosted its position in Ciena by 925.0% during the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after acquiring an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 4.8% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 403,490 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $24,851,000 after acquiring an additional 18,426 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Sanctuary Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 75.8% in the third quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 8,315 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $512,000 after purchasing an additional 3,584 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

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.