Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Shares Sold by Covestor Ltd

Covestor Ltd trimmed its holdings in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 66.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 659 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 1,308 shares during the quarter. Covestor Ltd’s holdings in Ciena were worth $41,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of CIEN. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 119.9% during the second quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $260,054,000 after purchasing an additional 2,943,146 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Ciena by 24.0% in the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,706,308 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $130,392,000 after purchasing an additional 523,313 shares during the period. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its position in Ciena by 1,944.4% in 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 purchasing an additional 1,961,513 shares during the period. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 17.2% in the second quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 2,049,464 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $98,743,000 after buying an additional 301,390 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Ciena by 7,767.2% in the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,966,414 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $94,742,000 after buying an additional 1,941,419 shares in the last quarter. 91.99% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have recently weighed in on CIEN. Morgan Stanley downgraded shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $63.00 price target on the stock. in a research note on Monday, October 28th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price target for the company. in a report on Monday, October 7th. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $44.00 to $68.00 in a report on Monday, September 23rd. Northland Securities reiterated a “market perform” rating and issued a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on shares of Ciena from $55.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 5th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and six have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ciena presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $63.08.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ciena news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,200 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $61.49, for a total value of $135,278.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 91,149 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,604,752.01. The trade was a 2.36 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.43, for a total transaction of $236,005.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 199,997 shares in the company, valued at $13,485,797.71. The trade was a 1.72 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 9,200 shares of company stock worth $568,123 over the last ninety days. Company insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $67.23 on Friday. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $63.80 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $54.57. The stock has a market cap of $9.71 billion, a PE ratio of 71.52, a PEG ratio of 5.80 and a beta of 0.94. Ciena Co. has a 52-week low of $42.20 and a 52-week high of $73.47. 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 (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. The company had revenue of $942.30 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $928.31 million. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.36 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 EPS for the current year.

Ciena declared that its board has authorized 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 stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are often a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its shares are undervalued.

Ciena 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.