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 the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, March 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $76.41, for a total transaction of $519,588.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 398,549 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $30,453,129.09. This represents a 1.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Trading Up 1.3 %

NYSE:CIEN opened at $75.25 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $10.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 132.03, a P/E/G ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.91. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $85.31 and its 200 day moving average price is $72.80. 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 Co. has a 52 week low of $43.30 and a 52 week high of $101.44.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently commented on CIEN shares. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $95.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Barclays boosted their target price 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. Bank of America raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, December 10th. Six analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $78.77.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 108.6% in the 4th quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 290 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 151 shares in the last quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc grew its holdings in Ciena by 925.0% during the fourth quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. grew its holdings in Ciena by 328.2% during the fourth quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 364 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 279 shares during the last quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. raised its position in shares of Ciena by 73.7% in the fourth quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 356 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $30,000 after purchasing an additional 151 shares during the period. Finally, Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Ciena by 77.2% in the fourth quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 420 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $36,000 after buying an additional 183 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% 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.