Fmr LLC Purchases 108,407 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Fmr LLC lifted its position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 21,664,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 108,407 shares during the period. Fmr LLC owned approximately 0.15% of Ciena worth $1,334,290,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in CIEN. Hoese & Co LLP bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the third quarter valued at $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 424.4% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 365 shares during the last quarter. Canton Hathaway LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena in the second quarter valued at $40,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 152.8% in the third quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $52,000 after purchasing an additional 512 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quarry LP increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 118.9% in the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 1,572 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $76,000 after purchasing an additional 854 shares during the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ciena

In other news, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total transaction of $88,928.11. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 39,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,724,139.14. This trade represents a 3.16 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. This trade represents a 2.36 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 10,489 shares of company stock valued at $657,051. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Ciena Stock Performance

Ciena stock opened at $70.86 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $65.48 and a 200-day moving average of $55.52. Ciena Co. has a 1 year low of $42.20 and a 1 year high of $73.47. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 4.06 and a quick ratio of 2.99. The company has a market capitalization of $10.23 billion, a P/E ratio of 75.38, a P/E/G ratio of 5.70 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) 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 return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The firm’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.36 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts predict that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena declared that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the communications equipment provider to purchase up to 10.5% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CIEN has been the topic of several research reports. BNP Paribas downgraded shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $59.00 to $67.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price objective on shares of Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the company from $44.00 to $68.00 in a report on Monday, September 23rd. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. Finally, Evercore ISI downgraded shares of Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.08.

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.