Citigroup Upgrades Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) to Buy

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) was upgraded by Citigroup from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating in a report released on Monday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The firm presently has a $68.00 price objective on the communications equipment provider’s stock, up from their prior price objective of $44.00. Citigroup’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 12.34% from the company’s current price.

Several other equities analysts have also issued reports on CIEN. Rosenblatt Securities increased their target price on Ciena from $54.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Bank of America reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $59.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Stifel Nicolaus increased their target price on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Raymond James lowered Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and reduced their price target for the company from $59.00 to $54.00 in a research report on Thursday, June 6th. Finally, B. Riley reduced their price target on Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 7th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Ciena currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.00.

Ciena Stock Performance

NYSE CIEN opened at $60.53 on Monday. The stock has a market cap of $8.70 billion, a PE ratio of 58.20, a P/E/G ratio of 6.86 and a beta of 0.94. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Ciena has a twelve month low of $39.94 and a twelve month high of $63.24. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $53.09 and a 200-day simple moving average of $49.79.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. The business had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $928.31 million. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The company’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.36 EPS. Equities analysts anticipate that Ciena will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total transaction of $196,840.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Ciena news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred 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 in the company, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, September 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares in the company, valued at $11,552,877.04. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 9,712 shares of company stock worth $498,637 in the last quarter. 0.83% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Register Financial Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the first quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the first quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Canton Hathaway LLC acquired a new position in Ciena during the second quarter worth $40,000. Finally, Covestor Ltd raised its holdings in Ciena by 339.5% during the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,213 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $60,000 after purchasing an additional 937 shares during the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.