Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Jason Phipps Sells 2,200 Shares of Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of NYSE CIEN opened at $61.45 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $8.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 59.09, a PEG ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94. Ciena Co. has a 52 week low of $39.94 and a 52 week high of $63.24. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $54.24 and its 200 day moving average price is $50.17. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The company had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $928.31 million. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.36 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. UBS Group AG lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 15.4% during the 4th quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 201,552 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $9,072,000 after acquiring an additional 26,870 shares during the period. Corient Private Wealth LLC raised its holdings in Ciena by 13.7% in the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 28,384 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,278,000 after buying an additional 3,415 shares during the period. Hsbc Holdings PLC raised its holdings in Ciena by 79.3% in the fourth quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 90,699 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $4,082,000 after buying an additional 40,102 shares during the period. Stifel Financial Corp raised its holdings in Ciena by 3.2% in the fourth quarter. Stifel Financial Corp now owns 119,628 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $5,384,000 after buying an additional 3,692 shares during the period. Finally, Allianz Asset Management GmbH raised its holdings in Ciena by 21.7% in the fourth quarter. Allianz Asset Management GmbH now owns 58,657 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,640,000 after buying an additional 10,466 shares during the period. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on CIEN shares. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $65.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research report on Monday, September 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on shares of Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, B. Riley cut their price objective on shares of Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 7th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Ciena has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.00.

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.