Gary B. Smith Sells 4,166 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $44.80, for a total transaction of $186,636.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,109 shares in the company, valued at approximately $17,252,883.20. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink.

Ciena Stock Performance

NYSE CIEN opened at $43.77 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 4.29, a quick ratio of 3.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $52.06 and a 200 day simple moving average of $48.19. Ciena Co. has a 12-month low of $39.94 and a 12-month high of $63.24. The company has a market cap of $6.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.42, a PEG ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 0.99.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, March 7th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.66 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.48 by $0.18. Ciena had a net margin of 5.22% and a return on equity of 9.92%. The company had revenue of $1.04 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.48 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts predict that Ciena Co. will post 1.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda purchased a new position in Ciena during the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena in the 1st quarter worth approximately $33,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 63.9% in the second quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 849 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 331 shares in the last quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena during the first quarter valued at approximately $59,000. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new stake in Ciena during the fourth quarter worth $61,000. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on CIEN shares. Needham & Company LLC increased their price target on Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 4th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, March 8th. Evercore ISI upped their price objective on shares of Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on shares of Ciena in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 price objective for the company. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $58.79.

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.