Stifel Financial Corp Boosts Position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Stifel Financial Corp lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 3.1% in the 3rd quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 105,774 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 3,153 shares during the quarter. Stifel Financial Corp’s holdings in Ciena were worth $6,515,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Panagora Asset Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 4.6% during the second quarter. Panagora Asset Management Inc. now owns 5,404 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,000 after purchasing an additional 239 shares in the last quarter. US Bancorp DE boosted its stake in Ciena by 2.4% in the third quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 10,307 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $635,000 after buying an additional 244 shares in the last quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC boosted its stake in Ciena by 5.4% in the third quarter. Private Advisor Group LLC now owns 6,169 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $380,000 after buying an additional 318 shares in the last quarter. UMB Bank n.a. boosted its stake in Ciena by 424.4% in the third quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 451 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $28,000 after buying an additional 365 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hoese & Co LLP purchased a new stake in Ciena in the third quarter worth approximately $25,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on CIEN shares. Evercore ISI lowered Ciena from an “outperform” rating to an “in-line” rating and set a $65.00 target price for the company. in a research note on Tuesday, October 15th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their target price on Ciena from $75.00 to $94.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday. Citigroup upped their target price on Ciena from $84.00 to $98.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. downgraded Ciena from an “overweight” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $65.00 price objective for the company. in a research report on Monday, October 7th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $77.00.

Insider Activity at Ciena

In related news, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 1,289 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $68.99, for a total value of $88,928.11. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 39,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,724,139.14. This represents a 3.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 205,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The trade was a 1.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 10,489 shares of company stock worth $657,051 over the last quarter. 0.83% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $89.72 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.99, a current ratio of 4.06 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The company has a market cap of $12.96 billion, a PE ratio of 157.40, a P/E/G ratio of 5.95 and a beta of 0.95. The business has a 50 day moving average of $68.91 and a 200 day moving average of $57.81. Ciena Co. has a 52 week low of $42.20 and a 52 week high of $91.25.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.66 by ($0.12). The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.10 billion. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. Ciena’s revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.56 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Ciena announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock buyback program on Wednesday, October 2nd that permits the company to repurchase $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the communications equipment provider to purchase up to 10.5% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Ciena 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.