Needham & Company LLC Cuts Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Price Target to $90.00

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) had its price objective trimmed by Needham & Company LLC from $95.00 to $90.00 in a report released on Wednesday morning,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has a buy rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

A number of other brokerages have also commented on CIEN. Citigroup raised their price target on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Bank of America raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Rosenblatt Securities lowered their price target on Ciena from $94.00 to $79.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 7th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $84.00 to $88.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. Finally, Northland Securities lifted their price objective on Ciena from $46.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Ciena has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $81.38.

Ciena Trading Up 2.5 %

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $63.84 on Wednesday. Ciena has a 12-month low of $43.30 and a 12-month high of $101.44. The company has a market cap of $9.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 112.00, a PEG ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.91. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $82.30 and its 200-day moving average price is $73.19.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a net margin of 2.09% and a return on equity of 4.72%. The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.56 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down .5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts expect that Ciena will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, SVP Dino Diperna sold 2,682 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.64, for a total transaction of $235,050.48. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,607 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,435,197.48. This represents a 5.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $89.09, for a total value of $311,815.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 192,997 shares in the company, valued at $17,194,102.73. This trade represents a 1.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 63,442 shares of company stock worth $5,337,764. 0.93% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CIEN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its position in shares of Ciena by 195.9% in the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 4,626,153 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $392,345,000 after acquiring an additional 3,062,883 shares in the last quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc raised its stake in Ciena by 113.7% during the 4th quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc now owns 2,169,406 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $183,987,000 after acquiring an additional 1,154,260 shares in the last quarter. Point72 Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in Ciena during the 3rd quarter valued at $57,861,000. Marshall Wace LLP raised its stake in Ciena by 4,215.9% during the 4th quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 899,828 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $76,314,000 after acquiring an additional 878,979 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Stephens Investment Management Group LLC bought a new stake in Ciena during the 4th quarter valued at $56,997,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

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.