Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Director Sells $1,436,843.52 in Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 16,912 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, January 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.96, for a total value of $1,436,843.52. Following the sale, the director now owns 59,347 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,042,121.12. The trade was a 22.18 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Price Performance

NYSE CIEN opened at $82.39 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $11.71 billion, a P/E ratio of 87.65, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.89. Ciena Co. has a 1 year low of $43.30 and a 1 year high of $91.82. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $76.42 and a 200 day simple moving average of $62.83.

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

Ciena declared that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the communications equipment provider to repurchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Ciena by 1.4% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $148,348,000 after acquiring an additional 33,074 shares during the period. Susquehanna Fundamental Investments LLC acquired a new stake in Ciena in the 2nd quarter worth $5,039,000. Atria Investments Inc bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,988,000. FMR LLC lifted its stake in shares of Ciena by 0.5% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,334,290,000 after buying an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Finally, Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC grew its position in Ciena by 119.6% during the third quarter. Segall Bryant & Hamill LLC now owns 239,389 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $14,744,000 after buying an additional 130,399 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CIEN has been the subject of several research reports. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Northland Securities lifted their target price on shares of Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Evercore ISI cut Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Finally, Bank of America raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their target price for the stock from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $77.00.

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.