Head to Head Review: Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) and Optimum Communications (NYSE:OPTU)

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) and Optimum Communications (NYSE:OPTU) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the superior stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings, profitability, risk and dividends.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares Ciena and Optimum Communications”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Ciena	$4.77 billion	7.03	$123.34 million	$0.85	280.11
Optimum Communications	$8.95 billion	0.09	-$102.92 million	($3.96)	-0.45

Ciena has higher earnings, but lower revenue than Optimum Communications. Optimum Communications is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Ciena, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

92.0% of Ciena shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 54.9% of Optimum Communications shares are held by institutional investors. 0.9% of Ciena shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 44.6% of Optimum Communications shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for Ciena and Optimum Communications, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Ciena	0	7	11	2	2.75
Optimum Communications	3	1	2	0	1.83

Ciena presently has a consensus price target of $237.50, indicating a potential downside of 0.25%. Optimum Communications has a consensus price target of $2.55, indicating a potential upside of 42.46%. Given Optimum Communications’ higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Optimum Communications is more favorable than Ciena.

Volatility & Risk

Ciena has a beta of 1.13, meaning that its stock price is 13% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Optimum Communications has a beta of 1.51, meaning that its stock price is 51% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares Ciena and Optimum Communications’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Ciena	2.59%	8.38%	4.06%
Optimum Communications	-21.43%	N/A	-0.90%

Summary

Ciena beats Optimum Communications on 10 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

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. Its products include 6500 Packet-Optical Platform, Waveserver stackable interconnect system, and the 6500 Reconfigurable line system, and the 5400 family of Packet-Optical platforms, as well as 8100 coherent routing platforms; 3000 family of service delivery switches and the 5000 family of service aggregation switches, as well as 8700 Packetwave Platform and 6500 Packet Transport System. This segment also sells operating system software and enhanced software features embedded in each of its products. The company’s Blue Planet Automation Software and Services segment provides multi-domain service orchestration, inventory, route optimization and analysis, multi-cloud orchestration, and unified assurance and analytics services. Its Platform Software and Service segment offers MCP domain controller solution, and OneControl unified management system, as well as planning tools. The company’s Global Services segment provides maintenance support and training, installation and deployment, and consulting and network design services. Ciena Corporation was incorporated in 1992 and is headquartered in Hanover, Maryland.

About Optimum Communications

Altice USA, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides broadband communications and video services in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It offers broadband, video, telephony, and mobile services to approximately five million residential and business customers. The company’s video services include delivery of broadcast stations and cable networks; over the top services; video-on-demand, high-definition channels, digital video recorder, and pay-per-view services; and platforms for video programming through mobile applications. It also provides voice over Internet protocol telephone services; and mobile services, such as data, talk, and text. In addition, the company offers Ethernet, data transport, IP-based virtual private networks, Internet access, and telephony services; hosted telephony services, managed Wi-Fi, managed desktop and server backup, and collaboration services comprising audio and web conferencing; fiber-to-the-tower services to wireless carriers; data services consisting of wide area networking and dedicated data access, as well as wireless mesh networks; and enterprise class telephone services that include traditional multi-line phone service. Further, it provides business e-mail, hosted private branch exchange, web space storage, and network security monitoring; and international calling and toll free numbers. Additionally, the company offers audience-based and IP-authenticated cross-screen advertising solutions; and television and digital advertising services, as well as operates news channels under the News 12 Networks, Cheddar, and i24NEWS names. It also provides broadband communications and video services under the Optimum and Suddenlink brands. The company was incorporated in 2015 and is headquartered in Long Island City, New York. Altice USA, Inc. is a subsidiary of Next Alt. S.a.r.l.