Seizert Capital Partners LLC Purchases New Position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Seizert Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) during the 3rd quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 34,151 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $2,103,000.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 119.9% in the 2nd quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,054,000 after purchasing an additional 2,943,146 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Ciena by 1,944.4% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,062,394 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $101,986,000 after buying an additional 1,961,513 shares during the period. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Ciena by 7,767.2% during the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,966,414 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $94,742,000 after buying an additional 1,941,419 shares during the period. Swedbank AB bought a new position in Ciena during the first quarter valued at $48,214,000. Finally, Rokos Capital Management LLP raised its stake in shares of Ciena by 118.7% in the first quarter. Rokos Capital Management LLP now owns 1,524,332 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $75,378,000 after acquiring an additional 827,352 shares during the period. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the business’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 value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The trade was a 1.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total transaction of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares in the company, valued at $5,604,752.01. The trade was a 2.36 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 9,200 shares of company stock valued at $568,123 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Down 3.6 %

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $67.22 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a current ratio of 4.06. Ciena Co. has a fifty-two week low of $42.20 and a fifty-two week high of $73.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $9.71 billion, a PE ratio of 71.51, a P/E/G ratio of 5.80 and a beta of 0.94. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $63.80 and its 200-day simple moving average is $54.63.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. Ciena’s revenue for the quarter was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.36 EPS. Equities analysts expect that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the communications equipment provider to purchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages recently commented on CIEN. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, September 5th. BNP Paribas downgraded Ciena from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $59.00 to $67.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 9th. Bank of America reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $59.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Morgan Stanley downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Monday, October 28th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Monday, October 7th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.08.

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.