Lecap Asset Management Ltd. Invests $852,000 in Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN)

Lecap Asset Management Ltd. bought a new position in Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) in the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm bought 14,098 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $852,000.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC boosted its stake in Ciena by 108.6% in the 4th quarter. Annis Gardner Whiting Capital Advisors LLC now owns 290 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 151 shares in the last quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. boosted its stake in Ciena by 73.7% in the 4th quarter. Bessemer Group Inc. now owns 356 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $30,000 after purchasing an additional 151 shares in the last quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. lifted its stake in Ciena by 328.2% during the 4th quarter. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management Co. Ltd. now owns 364 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $30,000 after acquiring an additional 279 shares during the period. Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Ciena by 77.2% during the 4th quarter. Atlas Capital Advisors Inc. now owns 420 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $36,000 after acquiring an additional 183 shares during the period. Finally, Picton Mahoney Asset Management acquired a new stake in Ciena during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $41,000. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have commented on CIEN shares. Citigroup decreased their price objective on shares of Ciena from $98.00 to $75.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 14th. Wall Street Zen cut shares of Ciena from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, June 7th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Ciena from $44.00 to $73.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Barclays set a $100.00 price objective on shares of Ciena and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 12th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $90.00 price objective on shares of Ciena in a research note on Friday, June 6th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $83.15.

Ciena Stock Performance

CIEN opened at $79.53 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.55, a current ratio of 3.40 and a quick ratio of 2.57. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $74.30 and a 200 day moving average price of $76.22. Ciena Corporation has a 1 year low of $44.89 and a 1 year high of $101.44. The stock has a market cap of $11.24 billion, a P/E ratio of 110.46, a P/E/G ratio of 1.74 and a beta of 1.12.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, June 5th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.42 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.50 by ($0.08). The company had revenue of $1.13 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. Ciena had a return on equity of 5.08% and a net margin of 2.46%. The business’s revenue was up 23.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.27 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Ciena Corporation will post 1.6 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Jason Phipps sold 18,888 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.88, for a total value of $1,131,013.44. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 89,258 shares in the company, valued at $5,344,769.04. This represents a 17.47% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.67, for a total transaction of $27,534.50. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 46,233 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,637,150.11. This trade represents a 0.75% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 49,638 shares of company stock worth $3,345,797. Company 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.