Canada Pension Plan Investment Board Lowers Holdings in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Canada Pension Plan Investment Board decreased its holdings in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 45.1% in the 2nd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 14,700 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 12,100 shares during the quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’s holdings in Ciena were worth $625,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans raised its holdings in Ciena by 8.6% in the first quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 2,801,038 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $147,110,000 after acquiring an additional 221,721 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp raised its holdings in Ciena by 283.3% in the first quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 17,330 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $910,000 after acquiring an additional 12,809 shares in the last quarter. Emerald Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in Ciena in the first quarter valued at approximately $231,000. AXA S.A. raised its holdings in Ciena by 10.6% in the first quarter. AXA S.A. now owns 968,428 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $50,862,000 after acquiring an additional 92,491 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Baker Tilly Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in Ciena by 3.1% in the second quarter. Baker Tilly Wealth Management LLC now owns 8,252 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $351,000 after acquiring an additional 248 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 90.02% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently weighed in on CIEN shares. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of Ciena from $47.00 to $52.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a report on Friday, September 1st. Stifel Nicolaus started coverage on shares of Ciena in a report on Wednesday, September 27th. They set a “buy” rating and a $62.00 price objective on the stock. Needham & Company LLC cut their price objective on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $50.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 28th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on shares of Ciena from $57.00 to $65.00 in a report on Friday, September 1st. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Ciena from $48.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Friday, September 1st. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.39.

Ciena Stock Performance

NYSE:CIEN opened at $44.96 on Tuesday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $44.66 and its 200 day moving average price is $43.93. Ciena Co. has a 1-year low of $39.94 and a 1-year high of $54.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.52, a current ratio of 3.95 and a quick ratio of 2.71. The firm has a market cap of $6.65 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.38, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.31 and a beta of 0.96.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 31st. The communications equipment provider reported $0.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.51 by $0.08. Ciena had a net margin of 5.23% and a return on equity of 10.00%. The firm had revenue of $1.07 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.04 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.18 EPS. Ciena’s quarterly revenue was up 23.0% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.97 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Ciena

In other Ciena news, SVP Scott Mcfeely sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.90, for a total transaction of $97,800.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 88,392 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,322,368.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other Ciena news, SVP Scott Mcfeely sold 2,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, September 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.90, for a total transaction of $97,800.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 88,392 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,322,368.80. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 3,833 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $47.30, for a total transaction of $181,300.90. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 82,617 shares in the company, valued at $3,907,784.10. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 33,753 shares of company stock worth $1,565,111 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.99% 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, IP routing, and switching services.