BNP Paribas Initiates Coverage on Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)

Research analysts at BNP Paribas started coverage on shares of Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) in a report released on Thursday, MarketBeat.com reports. The brokerage set an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 price target on the communications equipment provider’s stock. BNP Paribas’ price target would indicate a potential upside of 25.05% from the stock’s previous close.

CIEN has been the topic of a number of other reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. Needham & Company LLC lifted their price target on Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, March 4th. StockNews.com raised Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, March 8th. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their price target on Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, February 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $58.79.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE CIEN opened at $45.58 on Thursday. The stock has a market cap of $6.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.60, a P/E/G ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 0.99. The company has a current ratio of 4.29, a quick ratio of 3.12 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. Ciena has a 1-year low of $39.94 and a 1-year high of $63.24. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $52.92 and its 200 day moving average is $48.25.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 7th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.66 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.18. The company had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.02 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 9.92% and a net margin of 5.22%. Ciena’s revenue for the quarter was down 1.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.48 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Ciena will post 1.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Ciena news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.39, for a total value of $205,758.74. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 389,275 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,226,292.25. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Ciena news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 4,166 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.39, for a total value of $205,758.74. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 389,275 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,226,292.25. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, SVP Brodie Gage sold 533 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, April 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.61, for a total value of $26,442.13. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 41,372 shares in the company, valued at $2,052,464.92. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 107,533 shares of company stock valued at $5,808,540. 0.83% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CIEN. Kapitalo Investimentos Ltda bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $30,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 63.9% during the second quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 849 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after purchasing an additional 331 shares in the last quarter. Sunbelt Securities Inc. bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the first quarter valued at $59,000. Johnson Financial Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $61,000. Finally, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the third quarter valued at $101,000. 91.99% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.