Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Sells $88,928.11 in Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was 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 directly owns 39,486 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,724,139.14. The trade was a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Ciena Stock Performance

Ciena stock opened at $68.17 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $64.93 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $55.13. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Ciena Co. has a twelve month low of $42.20 and a twelve month high of $73.47. The company has a market capitalization of $9.85 billion, a PE ratio of 72.52, a P/E/G ratio of 5.45 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results 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 5.98% and a net margin of 3.44%. The company had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.36 EPS. Ciena’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 EPS for the current year.

Ciena announced that its board has authorized a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, October 2nd that authorizes the company to buyback $1.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the communications equipment provider to reacquire up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Hoese & Co LLP bought a new stake in shares of Ciena in the third quarter worth about $25,000. UMB Bank n.a. grew its position in shares of Ciena by 424.4% in the 3rd quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 365 shares during the last quarter. Canton Hathaway LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $40,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Ciena by 152.8% during the third quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $52,000 after buying an additional 512 shares during the period. Finally, Covestor Ltd raised its holdings in shares of Ciena by 339.5% during the first quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 1,213 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $60,000 after acquiring an additional 937 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have commented on CIEN shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, October 7th. Citigroup raised Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price objective for the company from $44.00 to $68.00 in a research note on Monday, September 23rd. Stifel Nicolaus upped their target price on Ciena from $68.00 to $75.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 9th. Evercore ISI downgraded Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Tuesday, October 15th. Finally, Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus 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.