AIA Group Ltd Sells 495 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

AIA Group Ltd lowered its position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 5.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 8,569 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 495 shares during the period. AIA Group Ltd’s holdings in Ciena were worth $386,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 1.0% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 15,084,694 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $712,903,000 after purchasing an additional 155,964 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 4.3% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 8,940,640 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $422,535,000 after purchasing an additional 371,041 shares during the last quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 8.6% during the 3rd quarter. BNP PARIBAS ASSET MANAGEMENT Holding S.A. now owns 4,652,822 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $219,893,000 after purchasing an additional 366,647 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 0.7% during the 1st quarter. State Street Corp now owns 4,262,245 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $223,853,000 after purchasing an additional 31,333 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Bank of America Corp DE boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 11.7% during the 1st quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 4,052,505 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $212,838,000 after purchasing an additional 424,453 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research analysts have commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Ciena from $56.00 to $67.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. Evercore ISI upped their target price on shares of Ciena from $57.00 to $63.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, February 23rd. Citigroup initiated coverage on shares of Ciena in a research report on Friday, April 12th. They set a “sell” rating and a $44.00 target price on the stock. BNP Paribas initiated coverage on shares of Ciena in a research report on Thursday, April 11th. They set an “outperform” rating and a $57.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on shares of Ciena from $60.00 to $65.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, March 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have issued a hold rating, eight have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $58.79.

Insider Activity

In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.19, for a total value of $175,665.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 230,001 shares in the company, valued at $11,543,750.19. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.19, for a total value of $175,665.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 230,001 shares in the company, valued at $11,543,750.19. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Joseph Cumello sold 3,156 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $45.74, for a total transaction of $144,355.44. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 51,171 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,340,561.54. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 107,189 shares of company stock worth $5,754,880. Corporate insiders own 0.83% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Price Performance

NYSE CIEN opened at $43.57 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53, a quick ratio of 3.12 and a current ratio of 4.29. The firm’s 50 day moving average price is $51.80 and its 200-day moving average price is $48.17. Ciena Co. has a 52-week low of $39.94 and a 52-week high of $63.24. The company has a market cap of $6.30 billion, a PE ratio of 28.29, a P/E/G ratio of 2.00 and a beta of 0.99.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 7th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.66 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.48 by $0.18. Ciena had a net margin of 5.22% and a return on equity of 9.92%. The firm had revenue of $1.04 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.02 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.48 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 1.8% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Ciena Co. will post 1.46 EPS for the current fiscal year.

About Ciena

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.