Insider Selling: Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) CEO Sells 6,800 Shares of Stock

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN - Get Free Report) CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $74.19, for a total transaction of $504,492.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 348,480 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $25,853,731.20. The trade was a 1.91% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of Ciena stock traded up $0.74 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $74.56. 2,813,653 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,091,533. Ciena Corporation has a 1 year low of $44.89 and a 1 year high of $101.44. The company has a market capitalization of $10.54 billion, a P/E ratio of 103.55, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.62 and a beta of 1.12. The business has a fifty day moving average of $73.15 and a two-hundred day moving average of $76.11. The company has a quick ratio of 2.57, a current ratio of 3.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, June 5th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.42 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of $0.50 by ($0.08). Ciena had a return on equity of 5.08% and a net margin of 2.46%. The business had revenue of $1.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.27 EPS. Ciena's quarterly revenue was up 23.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts predict that Ciena Corporation will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CIEN. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 195.9% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 4,626,153 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $392,345,000 after purchasing an additional 3,062,883 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the first quarter valued at about $70,065,000. Polar Capital Holdings Plc grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 113.7% in the fourth quarter. Polar Capital Holdings Plc now owns 2,169,406 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $183,987,000 after purchasing an additional 1,154,260 shares during the period. Marshall Wace LLP grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 4,215.9% in the fourth quarter. Marshall Wace LLP now owns 899,828 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $76,314,000 after purchasing an additional 878,979 shares during the period. Finally, Woodline Partners LP purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena in the first quarter valued at about $49,221,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CIEN has been the subject of several analyst reports. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Ciena from $73.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Barclays set a $100.00 target price on shares of Ciena and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Ciena from $76.00 to $86.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Tuesday, May 27th. B. Riley restated a "buy" rating and set a $90.00 price objective (up from $89.00) on shares of Ciena in a research report on Friday, June 6th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut shares of Ciena from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Saturday, June 7th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Ciena presently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $83.15.

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.