Insider Selling: Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells $1,091,236.32 in Stock

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary Smith sold 2,952 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $369.66, for a total transaction of $1,091,236.32. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 228,407 shares in the company, valued at $84,432,931.62. This represents a 1.28% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Ciena Stock Down 0.9%

Ciena stock opened at $356.20 on Friday. Ciena Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $159.56 and a fifty-two week high of $637.51. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $377.70 and its 200 day simple moving average is $441.03. The stock has a market cap of $50.51 billion, a PE ratio of 79.51, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.00 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.06, a quick ratio of 3.17 and a current ratio of 3.80.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, September 3rd. The communications equipment provider reported $2.11 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.73 by $0.38. The company had revenue of $1.67 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.64 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 25.33% and a net margin of 10.87%. Ciena’s quarterly revenue was up 37.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.35 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that Ciena Corporation will post 6.00 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CIEN has been the subject of several research analyst reports. UBS Group decreased their target price on Ciena from $508.00 to $394.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, September 4th. CL King set a $347.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a report on Friday, September 4th. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Ciena from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 25th. Sanford C. Bernstein assumed coverage on shares of Ciena in a report on Wednesday, September 30th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $440.00 price objective for the company. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded shares of Ciena from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, September 9th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have assigned a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Ciena currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $506.11.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CIEN. Corient Private Wealth LLC boosted its holdings in Ciena by 30,114.5% in the 4th quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 2,870,677 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $671,365,000 after buying an additional 2,861,176 shares during the period. Atreides Management LP raised its holdings in Ciena by 2.0% during the 4th quarter. Atreides Management LP now owns 1,428,230 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $334,020,000 after acquiring an additional 27,466 shares during the period. Bank of New York Mellon Corp bought a new stake in Ciena during the 2nd quarter valued at $404,948,000. Swiss National Bank raised its holdings in Ciena by 7.0% during the 1st quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 413,332 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $160,468,000 after acquiring an additional 26,900 shares during the period. Finally, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Ciena by 10.7% during the first quarter. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Group Inc. now owns 321,825 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $124,942,000 after acquiring an additional 31,098 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

About Ciena

Ciena Corporation is a networking technology company that provides communications infrastructure, software and services for telecommunications providers, cloud operators, enterprises, governments and research institutions. Its solutions are designed to help organizations build, manage and automate high-capacity networks that support applications such as cloud computing, broadband connectivity, data center interconnection and 5G services.

The company’s portfolio includes optical networking systems and coherent optical technologies, routing and switching platforms, broadband access solutions, network management software and professional services.