Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Brodie Gage Sells 550 Shares

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) SVP Brodie Gage sold 550 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $220.84, for a total value of $121,462.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 39,992 shares in the company, valued at $8,831,833.28. This represents a 1.36% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link.

Brodie Gage also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Monday, November 17th, Brodie Gage sold 111 shares of Ciena stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $190.80, for a total transaction of $21,178.80.
• On Wednesday, October 15th, Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of Ciena stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $169.36, for a total transaction of $59,276.00.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $209.74 on Wednesday. Ciena Corporation has a 1 year low of $49.21 and a 1 year high of $248.00. The firm has a market capitalization of $29.54 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 246.75, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.51 and a beta of 1.17. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56, a current ratio of 2.73 and a quick ratio of 2.09. The business has a fifty day moving average of $190.86 and a 200 day moving average of $131.02.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, December 11th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76 by $0.15. Ciena had a return on equity of 8.38% and a net margin of 2.59%.The firm had revenue of $1.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.29 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.54 earnings per share. Ciena’s revenue for the quarter was up 20.1% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Ciena Corporation will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Lone Pine Capital LLC acquired a new stake in Ciena during the third quarter worth about $292,310,000. Atreides Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $102,705,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 23.3% during the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,462,840 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $941,451,000 after buying an additional 1,219,787 shares during the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 2,174.2% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,143,855 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $166,625,000 after buying an additional 1,093,557 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management L.P. raised its position in shares of Ciena by 3,577.9% during the 2nd quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,032,393 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $83,965,000 after buying an additional 1,004,323 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Stifel Nicolaus set a $270.00 price objective on Ciena in a report on Thursday, December 11th. Evercore ISI set a $240.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research report on Thursday, December 11th. Wall Street Zen upgraded Ciena from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Saturday. Northland Capmk downgraded shares of Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, December 12th. Finally, Northland Securities set a $190.00 price target on shares of Ciena and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research report on Friday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have issued a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $236.38.

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.