Insider Selling: Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells 3,542 Shares of Stock

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN – Get Rating) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 3,542 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $44.68, for a total transaction of $158,256.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 427,879 shares in the company, valued at $19,117,633.72. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink.

Shares of CIEN traded up $1.96 during mid-day trading on Thursday, reaching $46.14. 2,477,275 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,663,729. The firm has a market cap of $6.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.96, a P/E/G ratio of 1.80 and a beta of 0.87. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $51.02 and a 200 day simple moving average of $61.09. Ciena Co. has a 12-month low of $41.63 and a 12-month high of $78.28. The company has a quick ratio of 3.10, a current ratio of 3.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.38.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN – Get Rating) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 2nd. The communications equipment provider reported $0.50 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.54 by ($0.04). The firm had revenue of $949.20 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $950.86 million. Ciena had a net margin of 11.15% and a return on equity of 12.18%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 13.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.52 EPS. On average, equities research analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.65 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on CIEN shares. Barclays decreased their target price on shares of Ciena from $84.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 3rd. Cowen decreased their target price on shares of Ciena from $96.00 to $82.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 6th. UBS Group decreased their target price on shares of Ciena from $66.00 to $51.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, June 3rd. B. Riley raised shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $65.00 to $67.00 in a research report on Friday, June 3rd. Finally, Citigroup cut their price target on shares of Ciena from $85.00 to $65.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, June 3rd. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $73.71.

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. IronBridge Private Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena in the fourth quarter worth $31,000. Allegheny Financial Group LTD bought a new stake in shares of Ciena in the fourth quarter worth $44,000. IndexIQ Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Ciena in the first quarter worth $41,000. Whittier Trust Co. increased its stake in shares of Ciena by 46.8% in the first quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 728 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $44,000 after buying an additional 232 shares during the last quarter. Finally, First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Ciena by 32.9% in the fourth quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 744 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $57,000 after buying an additional 184 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 88.75% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Company Profile (Get Rating)

Ciena Corporation provides network hardware, software, and services that support the transport, routing, switching, aggregation, service delivery, and management of video, data, and voice traffic on communications networks worldwide. The company's Networking Platforms segment offers hardware networking products and solutions that optimized for the convergence of coherent optical transport, optical transport network switching, and packet switching.

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