Principal Securities Inc. Decreases Stock Holdings in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Principal Securities Inc. reduced its position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 79.5% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 3,065 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 11,902 shares during the period. Principal Securities Inc.’s holdings in Ciena were worth $260,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Versant Capital Management Inc raised its position in shares of Ciena by 925.0% in the 4th quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 328 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $28,000 after purchasing an additional 296 shares during the last quarter. Kieckhefer Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Ciena during the fourth quarter valued at $59,000. UMB Bank n.a. increased its position in shares of Ciena by 59.2% in the 4th quarter. UMB Bank n.a. now owns 718 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $61,000 after acquiring an additional 267 shares during the period. First Horizon Advisors Inc. raised its stake in Ciena by 152.8% in the 3rd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 847 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $52,000 after acquiring an additional 512 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. lifted its position in Ciena by 241.5% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 1,424 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $88,000 after acquiring an additional 1,007 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Stifel Nicolaus reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $82.00 price objective (up from $75.00) on shares of Ciena in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the stock from $84.00 to $88.00 in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Ciena from $67.00 to $97.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, December 13th. Bank of America upgraded shares of Ciena from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $70.00 to $95.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $95.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research report on Friday, January 10th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $78.77.

Ciena Price Performance

Shares of Ciena stock opened at $84.15 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $12.00 billion, a PE ratio of 147.63, a P/E/G ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.88. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $86.64 and a 200 day moving average price of $71.44. The company has a quick ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 3.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. Ciena Co. has a twelve month low of $43.30 and a twelve month high of $101.44.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, December 12th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.54 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.66 by ($0.12). Ciena had a return on equity of 4.72% and a net margin of 2.09%. The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.10 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.56 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down .5% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Ciena Co. will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Ciena

In other news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $89.09, for a total transaction of $311,815.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 192,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $17,194,102.73. This represents a 1.78 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Dino Diperna sold 2,682 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $87.64, for a total transaction of $235,050.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,607 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,435,197.48. This represents a 5.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 56,642 shares of company stock valued at $4,818,176 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.93% of the company’s stock.

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.