Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) Sees Large Increase in Short Interest

Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) saw a significant increase in short interest in August. As of August 15th, there was short interest totalling 4,830,000 shares, an increase of 9.5% from the July 31st total of 4,410,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 1,490,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 3.2 days. Approximately 3.4% of the company’s stock are sold short.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ciena

In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total value of $130,962.48. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 96,000 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Ciena news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 2,712 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.29, for a total transaction of $130,962.48. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 96,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,635,840. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, July 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.81, for a total value of $170,835.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 212,421 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,368,269.01. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. 0.83% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Ciena

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. SG Americas Securities LLC grew its position in Ciena by 1,171.4% in the 2nd quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 44,854 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $2,161,000 after purchasing an additional 41,326 shares during the last quarter. First Hawaiian Bank bought a new stake in Ciena during the second quarter worth approximately $661,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its holdings in Ciena by 2.0% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 949,476 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $42,736,000 after buying an additional 18,860 shares in the last quarter. Capital Fund Management S.A. grew its position in Ciena by 67.3% in the fourth quarter. Capital Fund Management S.A. now owns 225,172 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $10,135,000 after buying an additional 90,610 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Ciena in the fourth quarter valued at $73,476,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Down 1.5 %

Shares of Ciena stock traded down $0.87 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $56.78. The company had a trading volume of 894,855 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,715,451. The company has a market cap of $8.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 55.17, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 6.02 and a beta of 0.94. Ciena has a fifty-two week low of $39.94 and a fifty-two week high of $63.24. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $50.61 and its 200-day moving average is $49.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 2.76 and a current ratio of 3.88.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, June 6th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.27 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.15 by $0.12. Ciena had a net margin of 3.71% and a return on equity of 7.16%. The company had revenue of $910.80 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $895.80 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.59 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 19.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts anticipate that Ciena will post 1.15 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their price target on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Raymond James cut Ciena from a “strong-buy” rating to an “outperform” rating and lowered their price target for the company from $59.00 to $54.00 in a report on Thursday, June 6th. Needham & Company LLC increased their price objective on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, August 22nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their target price on shares of Ciena from $67.00 to $60.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, May 30th. Finally, Barclays lowered their price objective on shares of Ciena from $63.00 to $55.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, June 7th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and nine have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $57.25.

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.