Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells $186,636.80 in Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of Ciena 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 385,109 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,252,883.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Ciena Stock Performance

CIEN traded down $0.25 on Wednesday, reaching $44.78. 1,319,188 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,036,666. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 4.29 and a quick ratio of 3.12. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $52.52 and its 200 day moving average price is $48.25. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.48 billion, a PE ratio of 29.24, a PEG ratio of 2.03 and a beta of 0.99. Ciena Co. has a fifty-two week low of $39.94 and a fifty-two week high of $63.24.

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda acquired a new stake in Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Ciena in the 1st quarter valued at $33,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Ciena by 63.9% in the 2nd quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 849 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $36,000 after acquiring an additional 331 shares in the last quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. acquired a new position in Ciena during the first quarter worth $59,000. Finally, Johnson Financial Group Inc. purchased a new position in Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $61,000. 91.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on CIEN. Evercore ISI increased their price objective on shares of Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on Ciena in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 price objective on the stock. Citigroup assumed coverage on Ciena in a research report on Friday, April 12th. They set a “sell” rating and a $44.00 target price for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently 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.