Picton Mahoney Asset Management Makes New Investment in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Picton Mahoney Asset Management purchased a new position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund purchased 475 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $41,000.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of CIEN. Point72 Asset Management L.P. purchased a new position in Ciena in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $57,861,000. Stephens Investment Management Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $56,997,000. Vaughan Nelson Investment Management L.P. purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the third quarter valued at approximately $40,416,000. Westfield Capital Management Co. LP purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the third quarter valued at approximately $35,403,000. Finally, Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $40,919,000. 91.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 5,648 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $84.64, for a total transaction of $478,046.72. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 109,878 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $9,300,073.92. This represents a 4.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Dino Diperna sold 2,682 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $87.64, for a total value of $235,050.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,607 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,435,197.48. This represents a 5.03 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 59,942 shares of company stock valued at $5,025,949 over the last ninety days. 0.93% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Ciena Trading Up 2.5 %

Ciena stock opened at $63.84 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 3.55, a quick ratio of 2.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $82.30 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $73.42. Ciena Co. has a 12 month low of $43.30 and a 12 month high of $101.44. The company has a market capitalization of $9.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 112.00, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.91.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The company had revenue of $1.12 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.56 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CIEN has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Bank of America raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Ciena from $80.00 to $76.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Northland Securities raised Ciena from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $60.00 to $75.00 in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Rosenblatt Securities reduced their price target on Ciena from $94.00 to $79.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, March 7th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Ciena from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $84.00 to $88.00 in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $81.38.

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.