Dark Forest Capital Management LP Takes Position in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Dark Forest Capital Management LP bought a new stake in shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 4,740 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $228,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of CIEN. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC grew its holdings in shares of Ciena by 119.9% in the second quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 5,397,560 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $260,054,000 after purchasing an additional 2,943,146 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its holdings in Ciena by 1,944.4% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 2,062,394 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $101,986,000 after acquiring an additional 1,961,513 shares during the last quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its position in shares of Ciena by 7,767.2% in the second quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 1,966,414 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $94,742,000 after acquiring an additional 1,941,419 shares during the period. Swedbank AB bought a new position in shares of Ciena during the first quarter valued at about $48,214,000. Finally, Rokos Capital Management LLP boosted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 118.7% during the first quarter. Rokos Capital Management LLP now owns 1,524,332 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $75,378,000 after purchasing an additional 827,352 shares during the period. 91.99% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Ciena news, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Monday, September 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $56.24, for a total value of $196,840.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 205,421 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,552,877.04. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.83% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. Stifel Nicolaus upped their price target on Ciena from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 3rd. Citigroup upgraded shares of Ciena from a “sell” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $44.00 to $68.00 in a report on Monday, September 23rd. B. Riley decreased their price objective on shares of Ciena from $68.00 to $66.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Friday, June 7th. Northland Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating and set a $46.00 target price on shares of Ciena in a research note on Tuesday, September 3rd. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $65.00 price target on shares of Ciena in a research note on Thursday, September 5th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and ten have given a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.00.

Ciena Trading Down 1.0 %

Ciena stock opened at $61.81 on Monday. Ciena Co. has a 12 month low of $39.94 and a 12 month high of $63.24. The company has a current ratio of 4.06, a quick ratio of 2.99 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.53. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $53.81 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $50.01. The company has a market capitalization of $8.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 59.43, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.93 and a beta of 0.94.

Ciena (NYSE:CIEN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, September 4th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.35 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.26 by $0.09. Ciena had a net margin of 3.44% and a return on equity of 5.98%. The business had revenue of $942.30 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $928.31 million. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.36 EPS. Ciena’s revenue was down 11.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts predict that Ciena Co. will post 1.15 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.