B. Riley Reiterates “Neutral” Rating for Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating reaffirmed by analysts at B. Riley in a note issued to investors on Friday, MarketBeat.com reports. They presently have a $113.00 price target on the communications equipment provider’s stock, up from their prior price target of $90.00. B. Riley’s price objective would indicate a potential downside of 3.06% from the stock’s previous close.

Several other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on CIEN. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price objective on Ciena from $78.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, August 29th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Ciena from $90.00 to $100.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $90.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on Ciena from $95.00 to $120.00 and gave the company an “in-line” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Ciena from $83.00 to $105.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, July 17th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eight have assigned a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Ciena presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $114.32.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $116.57 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $89.35 and a 200 day moving average of $77.29. Ciena has a 12 month low of $49.21 and a 12 month high of $122.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $16.48 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 120.18, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.16. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 3.40 and a quick ratio of 2.57.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, June 5th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.42 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by ($0.08). Ciena had a net margin of 3.10% and a return on equity of 6.61%. The firm had revenue of $1.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.27 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 23.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.94, for a total transaction of $31,829.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president owned 43,268 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,934,791.92. This trade represents a 0.80% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $92.93, for a total value of $631,924.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 305,157 shares in the company, valued at $28,358,240.01. This trade represents a 2.18% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 39,769 shares of company stock worth $3,326,705 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 0.93% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Ciena

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Orion Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Ciena during the 4th quarter worth about $42,000. Bessemer Group Inc. increased its position in Ciena by 50.0% during the first quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 534 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 178 shares during the period. Bayforest Capital Ltd increased its position in Ciena by 34.7% during the first quarter. Bayforest Capital Ltd now owns 636 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $38,000 after buying an additional 164 shares during the period. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB increased its position in Ciena by 66.7% during the first quarter. MassMutual Private Wealth & Trust FSB now owns 640 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $39,000 after buying an additional 256 shares during the period. Finally, Allworth Financial LP increased its position in Ciena by 107.5% during the second quarter. Allworth Financial LP now owns 718 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $58,000 after buying an additional 372 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Company 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.