Analysts Set Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Price Target at $77.00

Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) have been assigned an average recommendation of “Moderate Buy” from the thirteen brokerages that are covering the stock, Marketbeat.com reports. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the company. The average 1-year price target among brokerages that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $77.00.

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on CIEN shares. Citigroup lifted their target price on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Evercore ISI lowered shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a report on Tuesday, October 15th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $95.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a report on Friday. Morgan Stanley lowered shares of 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. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on shares of Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.09, for a total value of $311,815.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 192,997 shares in the company, valued at approximately $17,194,102.73. This trade represents a 1.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 16,912 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $84.96, for a total value of $1,436,843.52. Following the sale, the director now owns 59,347 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,042,121.12. This trade represents a 22.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 47,131 shares of company stock worth $3,924,465. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CIEN. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 1.4% during the 3rd 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 period. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the second quarter valued at approximately $5,039,000. Atria Investments Inc bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the third quarter valued at approximately $1,988,000. FMR LLC raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 0.5% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,334,290,000 after buying an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Finally, Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC lifted its stake in shares of Ciena by 119.6% during the 3rd quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC now owns 239,389 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $14,744,000 after acquiring an additional 130,399 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Trading Up 0.2 %

Ciena stock opened at $82.39 on Friday. Ciena has a 52-week low of $43.30 and a 52-week high of $91.82. The company has a market cap of $11.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 87.65, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The business has a 50-day simple moving average of $76.79 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $63.19.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results 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). 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 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.56 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Ciena will post 1.13 EPS for the current year.

Ciena announced that its board has initiated a share buyback program 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 buy up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.