Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells 6,800 Shares of Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.29, for a total value of $579,972.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 418,949 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,732,160.21. The trade was a 1.60 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Ciena Price Performance

CIEN opened at $84.96 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $78.40 and a 200 day moving average of $64.45. The stock has a market cap of $12.07 billion, a P/E ratio of 149.06, a PEG ratio of 1.49 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a quick ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 3.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. Ciena Co. has a 52-week low of $43.30 and a 52-week high of $91.82.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.66 by ($0.12). The company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.56 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ciena Co. will post 1.57 EPS for the current year.

Ciena declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the communications equipment provider to repurchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 26.4% during the 2nd quarter. Oppenheimer Asset Management Inc. now owns 10,647 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $513,000 after buying an additional 2,227 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Ciena by 42.2% in the second quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 223,051 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $10,747,000 after acquiring an additional 66,214 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its holdings in Ciena by 24.0% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $130,392,000 after acquiring an additional 523,313 shares in the last quarter. Amalgamated Bank increased its position in Ciena by 2.4% during the 2nd quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 81,232 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,914,000 after purchasing an additional 1,869 shares during the period. Finally, Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 52.4% in the 2nd quarter. Mercer Global Advisors Inc. ADV now owns 7,737 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $373,000 after purchasing an additional 2,661 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently commented on CIEN. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $95.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their target price on shares of Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Evercore ISI downgraded shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company. in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut 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. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $77.00.

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.