Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Sells $144,355.44 in Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Joseph Cumello sold 3,156 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, April 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $45.74, for a total value of $144,355.44. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 51,171 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,340,561.54. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website.

Ciena Stock Down 0.5 %

CIEN stock opened at $43.57 on Friday. Ciena Co. has a fifty-two week low of $39.94 and a fifty-two week high of $63.24. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $51.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $48.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 3.12 and a current ratio of 4.29. The company has a market capitalization of $6.30 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.05 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 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.18. Ciena had a return on equity of 9.92% and a net margin of 5.22%. The firm had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.48 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.46 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CIEN has been the topic of several analyst reports. Citigroup initiated coverage on Ciena in a report on Friday, April 12th. They issued a “sell” rating and a $44.00 price objective on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. BNP Paribas started coverage on Ciena in a report on Thursday, April 11th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $58.79.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hsbc Holdings PLC grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 87.0% in the 3rd quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 50,597 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $2,407,000 after buying an additional 23,544 shares during the last quarter. DigitalBridge Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 34.4% in the 3rd quarter. DigitalBridge Group Inc. now owns 352,727 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $16,670,000 after buying an additional 90,206 shares during the last quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 2.2% in the 3rd quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 17,585 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $833,000 after buying an additional 376 shares during the last quarter. Sowell Financial Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $483,000. Finally, Atreides Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $77,883,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

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.