Insider Selling: Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells 6,800 Shares of Stock

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $74.19, for a total value of $504,492.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 348,480 shares in the company, valued at approximately $25,853,731.20. This represents a 1.91% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Ciena Stock Up 0.5%

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $73.83 on Thursday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.57, a current ratio of 3.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The firm has a market cap of $10.44 billion, a P/E ratio of 102.55, a P/E/G ratio of 1.61 and a beta of 1.12. Ciena Corporation has a fifty-two week low of $44.89 and a fifty-two week high of $101.44. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $72.52 and a 200 day moving average price of $76.05.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 5th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.42 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.08). The firm had revenue of $1.13 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. Ciena had a net margin of 2.46% and a return on equity of 5.08%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 23.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.27 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena Corporation will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CIEN. Empowered Funds LLC bought a new stake in Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at about $263,000. Rhumbline Advisers boosted its stake in Ciena by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 390,148 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $33,088,000 after acquiring an additional 2,594 shares during the period. Sanctuary Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Ciena by 5.8% in the fourth quarter. Sanctuary Advisors LLC now owns 8,794 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $744,000 after acquiring an additional 479 shares during the period. CIBC Asset Management Inc boosted its stake in Ciena by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. CIBC Asset Management Inc now owns 4,469 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $379,000 after acquiring an additional 226 shares during the period. Finally, Atria Wealth Solutions Inc. acquired a new position in Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $221,000. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts have commented on CIEN shares. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $90.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, June 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their target price on Ciena from $76.00 to $86.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, May 27th. Northland Capmk raised Ciena from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 12th. Wall Street Zen lowered Ciena from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, June 7th. Finally, UBS Group lifted their target price on Ciena from $73.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, June 6th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $83.15.

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.