Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) Price Target Raised to $250.00

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) had its price objective upped by JPMorgan Chase & Co. from $215.00 to $250.00 in a report published on Friday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an overweight rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

Several other equities analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Argus lifted their price objective on Ciena from $135.00 to $280.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Stifel Nicolaus set a $270.00 price target on Ciena in a research report on Thursday. Citigroup boosted their price target on Ciena to $280.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Northland Securities set a $190.00 price objective on shares of Ciena and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Evercore ISI set a $240.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a report on Thursday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eleven have assigned a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $236.38.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $218.82 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.09, a current ratio of 2.73 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $30.87 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 257.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.53 and a beta of 1.17. Ciena has a twelve month low of $49.21 and a twelve month high of $248.00. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $188.43 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $129.16.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 11th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.76 by $0.15. Ciena had a net margin of 2.59% and a return on equity of 8.38%. The firm had revenue of $1.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.29 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.54 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 20.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Ciena will post 1.6 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Gary B. Smith sold 6,800 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, December 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $192.61, for a total value of $1,309,748.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 254,870 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $49,090,510.70. This represents a 2.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Bruce L. Claflin sold 8,461 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $140.12, for a total transaction of $1,185,555.32. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 54,624 shares in the company, valued at approximately $7,653,914.88. The trade was a 13.41% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 44,785 shares of company stock worth $7,734,906 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.93% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Lone Pine Capital LLC bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the 3rd quarter valued at $292,310,000. Atreides Management LP bought a new stake in Ciena during the 2nd quarter worth $102,705,000. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased its holdings in Ciena by 23.3% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 6,462,840 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $941,451,000 after purchasing an additional 1,219,787 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its position in Ciena by 2,174.2% in the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 1,143,855 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $166,625,000 after purchasing an additional 1,093,557 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Balyasny Asset Management L.P. boosted its stake in shares of Ciena by 3,577.9% during the second quarter. Balyasny Asset Management L.P. now owns 1,032,393 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $83,965,000 after purchasing an additional 1,004,323 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors 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.