Gary B. Smith Sells 6,800 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.86, for a total value of $577,048.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 412,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $34,974,964.14. The trade was a 1.62 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

Ciena Trading Up 5.3 %

Shares of CIEN opened at $92.15 on Thursday. Ciena Co. has a fifty-two week low of $43.30 and a fifty-two week high of $101.44. The firm has a market cap of $13.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 161.67, a PEG ratio of 1.55 and a beta of 0.88. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $83.16 and a 200-day moving average price of $68.01. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54, a quick ratio of 2.72 and a current ratio of 3.55.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The business had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.56 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CIEN. Marshall Wace LLP bought a new stake in Ciena in the second quarter valued at approximately $202,000. Millennium Management LLC raised its holdings in Ciena by 640.7% during the 2nd quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 64,466 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,106,000 after buying an additional 55,763 shares during the last quarter. Creative Planning boosted its position in Ciena by 13.7% during the 2nd quarter. Creative Planning now owns 8,799 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $424,000 after buying an additional 1,062 shares during the period. Truist Financial Corp grew its holdings in Ciena by 10.4% in the 2nd quarter. Truist Financial Corp now owns 29,614 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,427,000 after acquiring an additional 2,800 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Sanctuary Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Ciena in the 2nd quarter worth $221,000. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages recently commented on CIEN. Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $95.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a report on Friday, January 10th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Stifel Nicolaus restated a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 target price (up from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $78.77.

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.