Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Stake Raised by Covestor Ltd

Covestor Ltd increased its stake in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 339.5% during the first quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 1,213 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 937 shares during the period. Covestor Ltd’s holdings in Ciena were worth $60,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in CIEN. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the 1st quarter valued at about $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the 1st quarter valued at about $40,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Ciena during the 4th quarter valued at about $61,000. Finally, Neo Ivy Capital Management bought a new stake in Ciena during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $154,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on CIEN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. decreased their target price on Ciena from $67.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, May 30th. Raymond James downgraded Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and decreased their target price for the company from $59.00 to $54.00 in a research note on Thursday, June 6th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on Ciena from $52.50 to $54.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Friday, June 7th. BNP Paribas started coverage on Ciena in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 price objective for the company. Finally, B. Riley reduced their price objective on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, June 7th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and nine have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $57.25.

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total value of $170,835.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 212,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,368,269.01. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total transaction of $170,835.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 212,421 shares in the company, valued at $10,368,269.01. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.16, for a total value of $204,800.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 376,777 shares in the company, valued at $18,522,357.32. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 15,832 shares of company stock worth $769,636 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Down 3.2 %

NYSE CIEN opened at $49.62 on Thursday. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $48.23 and a 200-day moving average of $50.02. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.35 and a beta of 0.95. Ciena Co. has a 52 week low of $39.94 and a 52 week high of $63.24. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.76 and a current ratio of 3.88.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, June 6th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.27 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.15 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $910.80 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $895.80 million. Ciena had a return on equity of 7.16% and a net margin of 3.71%. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 19.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.59 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 EPS for the current year.

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.