Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. Takes $219,000 Position in Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN)

Cambridge Investment Research Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN - Free Report) in the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 3,624 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock, valued at approximately $219,000.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of CIEN. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 108.6% in the 4th quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 290 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 151 shares during the period. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 73.7% in the 4th quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 356 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 151 shares during the period. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 328.2% in the 4th quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 364 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 279 shares during the period. Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 77.2% in the 4th quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 420 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $36,000 after buying an additional 183 shares during the period. Finally, Picton Mahoney Asset Management purchased a new position in shares of Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at about $41,000. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CIEN has been the subject of several recent research reports. Citigroup decreased their price objective on Ciena from $98.00 to $75.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Evercore ISI reiterated a "mixed" rating on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Northland Securities set a $100.00 price objective on Ciena in a research note on Monday, June 30th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on Ciena from $65.00 to $85.00 and gave the stock a "neutral" rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 3rd. Finally, Wolfe Research raised Ciena to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 8th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Ciena has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $85.54.

Ciena Stock Performance

CIEN traded up $0.84 during trading on Thursday, hitting $84.96. 1,760,506 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,159,008. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 118.00, a PEG ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 1.11. Ciena Corporation has a 1-year low of $44.89 and a 1-year high of $101.44. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $78.81 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $75.83. 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 quarterly earnings results on Thursday, June 5th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.42 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.50 by ($0.08). The firm had revenue of $1.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.08% and a net margin of 2.46%. The company's quarterly revenue was up 23.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.27 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Ciena Corporation will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Ciena

In other news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $71.90, for a total value of $488,920.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 368,880 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $26,522,472. The trade was a 1.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 2,044 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, June 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $81.64, for a total value of $166,872.16. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 47,198 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,853,244.72. The trade was a 4.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 42,269 shares of company stock valued at $3,306,811 over the last 90 days. 0.93% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.