Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Price Target Increased to $67.00 by Analysts at Barclays

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) had its price objective upped by equities research analysts at Barclays from $55.00 to $67.00 in a research note issued to investors on Thursday, Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “overweight” rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock. Barclays‘s price target suggests a potential upside of 23.23% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on CIEN. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on Ciena from $67.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, May 30th. Raymond James cut Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and lowered their price target for the stock from $59.00 to $54.00 in a report on Thursday, June 6th. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. B. Riley lowered their price target on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, June 7th. Finally, Morgan Stanley upped their target price on Ciena from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. 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 company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Ciena currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $58.67.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE CIEN traded down $0.56 during midday trading on Thursday, reaching $54.37. 278,714 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,748,303. Ciena has a 1 year low of $39.94 and a 1 year high of $63.24. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $50.92 and a 200 day simple moving average of $49.97. The stock has a market cap of $7.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 52.28, a PEG ratio of 6.02 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 3.88, a quick ratio of 2.76 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a return on equity of 7.16% and a net margin of 3.71%. The company had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.36 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total value of $130,962.48. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 96,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In related news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total value of $130,962.48. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 96,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total value of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 212,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,368,269.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Corporate insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CIEN. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 119.9% during the second quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $260,054,000 after acquiring an additional 2,943,146 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 7.9% during the fourth quarter. BNP Paribas Asset Management Holding S.A. now owns 5,021,719 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $226,028,000 after acquiring an additional 368,897 shares in the last quarter. Capital World Investors grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 29.1% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 3,513,633 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $158,149,000 after acquiring an additional 791,215 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 24.0% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $130,392,000 after acquiring an additional 523,313 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in shares of Ciena by 1,944.4% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,062,394 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $101,986,000 after acquiring an additional 1,961,513 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.