Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Given Average Recommendation of "Moderate Buy" by Analysts

Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN - Get Free Report) have been assigned a consensus recommendation of "Moderate Buy" from the thirteen research firms that are currently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and seven have issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $77.00.

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on CIEN shares. Barclays raised their price objective on Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Ciena from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and upped their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a report on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Ciena from an "overweight" rating to a "neutral" rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on shares of Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.09, for a total transaction of $311,815.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 192,997 shares of the company's stock, valued at $17,194,102.73. This represents a 1.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total transaction of $88,928.11. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 39,486 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 10,971 shares of company stock worth $871,799 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in CIEN. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position 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 buying an additional 33,074 shares during the last quarter. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $5,039,000. Atria Investments Inc bought a new stake in shares of Ciena during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,988,000. FMR LLC increased its position in Ciena by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $1,334,290,000 after purchasing an additional 108,407 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC lifted its stake in Ciena by 119.6% in the 3rd quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC now owns 239,389 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $14,744,000 after purchasing an additional 130,399 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company's stock.

Ciena Stock Up 0.4 %

Shares of NYSE:CIEN traded up $0.37 during midday trading on Friday, hitting $83.61. The stock had a trading volume of 1,597,117 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,049,158. 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's 50-day simple moving average is $74.95 and its 200-day simple moving average is $62.06. Ciena has a 12 month low of $43.30 and a 12 month high of $91.82. The company has a market cap of $11.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 88.95, a PEG ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.95.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The firm had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.56 earnings per share. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Ciena announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the communications equipment provider to reacquire up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company's board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

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.