Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Downgraded by BNP Paribas to Neutral

BNP Paribas cut shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) from an outperform rating to a neutral rating in a report released on Wednesday morning, MarketBeat Ratings reports. BNP Paribas currently has $67.00 target price on the communications equipment provider’s stock, up from their prior target price of $59.00.

Several other equities research analysts also recently weighed in on the stock. Northland Securities restated a market perform rating and issued a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research note on Wednesday, September 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Ciena from an overweight rating to a neutral rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an overweight rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of Moderate Buy and an average price target of $62.92.

Ciena Price Performance

NYSE CIEN opened at $68.47 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a current ratio of 4.06. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $56.80 and its 200-day moving average price is $51.08. Ciena has a 52-week low of $39.94 and a 52-week high of $69.91. The company has a market cap of $9.89 billion, a PE ratio of 72.84, a P/E/G ratio of 8.83 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.26 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $928.31 million. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. Ciena’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.36 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.13 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Ciena declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that allows the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization allows the communications equipment provider to reacquire up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total transaction of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 212,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,368,269.01. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total transaction of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 212,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,368,269.01. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,604,752.01. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 9,200 shares of company stock valued at $502,953 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC increased its holdings in Ciena by 119.9% in 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 buying an additional 2,943,146 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its holdings in Ciena by 24.0% in 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 buying an additional 523,313 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of Ciena by 1,944.4% in 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 purchasing an additional 1,961,513 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 17.2% in the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,049,464 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $98,743,000 after purchasing an additional 301,390 shares during the period. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 7,767.2% in the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,966,414 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $94,742,000 after purchasing an additional 1,941,419 shares during the period. 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.