Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary Smith Sells 6,800 Shares of Stock

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary Smith sold 6,800 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, October 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $170.25, for a total transaction of $1,157,700.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 275,270 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $46,864,717.50. This represents a 2.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Ciena Price Performance

CIEN stock opened at $171.37 on Friday. Ciena Corporation has a 12 month low of $49.21 and a 12 month high of $176.88. The company has a current ratio of 3.28, a quick ratio of 2.52 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $125.66 and a 200 day moving average price of $93.04. The stock has a market cap of $24.17 billion, a PE ratio of 176.67, a P/E/G ratio of 2.36 and a beta of 1.15.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 6th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.47 EPS for the quarter. The firm had revenue of $844.44 million during the quarter. Ciena had a net margin of 3.10% and a return on equity of 6.62%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Ciena Corporation will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several equities research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Northland Securities set a $100.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research report on Monday, June 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $105.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 5th. BNP Paribas Exane raised shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $185.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Monday, October 13th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Ciena from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $100.00 to $140.00 in a research report on Friday, October 10th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Ciena to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 8th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $137.53.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Ciena by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,088,445 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,227,143,000 after purchasing an additional 103,199 shares during the period. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 7.4% during the 2nd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 5,243,053 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $426,420,000 after acquiring an additional 359,579 shares in the last quarter. Bank of America Corp DE raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 10.4% during the 2nd quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 3,495,795 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $284,313,000 after acquiring an additional 329,821 shares in the last quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 35.0% during the 2nd quarter. William Blair Investment Management LLC now owns 2,708,540 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $220,286,000 after acquiring an additional 702,909 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Senvest Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 12.4% during the 2nd quarter. Senvest Management LLC now owns 1,655,012 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $134,602,000 after acquiring an additional 182,900 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

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.