Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. Sells 854,828 Shares of Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN)

Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. lowered its stake in Ciena Co. (NYSE:CIEN) by 49.2% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 881,131 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 854,828 shares during the quarter. Diamond Hill Capital Management Inc. owned approximately 0.62% of Ciena worth $74,729,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Ciena by 1.4% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,408,014 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $148,348,000 after acquiring an additional 33,074 shares during the last quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management bought a new position in Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $245,000. US Bancorp DE raised its holdings in Ciena by 1.5% in the 4th quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 10,459 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $887,000 after buying an additional 152 shares during the last quarter. Merit Financial Group LLC bought a new position in Ciena in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $421,000. Finally, Atria Investments Inc bought a new position in Ciena in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,988,000. Institutional investors own 91.99% of the company’s stock.

Ciena Stock Performance

Shares of CIEN stock opened at $62.30 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $8.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 109.30, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.54 and a beta of 0.91. Ciena Co. has a 52 week low of $43.30 and a 52 week high of $101.44. The company has a quick ratio of 2.72, a current ratio of 3.55 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.54. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $83.11 and a 200-day moving average of $73.22.

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

Insider Transactions at Ciena

In related news, SVP Brodie Gage sold 350 shares of Ciena stock in a transaction on Wednesday, January 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $85.91, for a total value of $30,068.50. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 49,547 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,256,582.77. This trade represents a 0.70 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP David M. Rothenstein sold 3,500 shares of Ciena 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 directly owns 192,997 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $17,194,102.73. The trade was a 1.78 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 63,442 shares of company stock valued at $5,337,764 in the last quarter. 0.93% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on CIEN. Northland Capmk upgraded shares of Ciena from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on shares of Ciena from $80.00 to $76.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday. Northland Securities upgraded shares of Ciena from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $60.00 to $75.00 in a report on Wednesday. Barclays set a $100.00 price objective on shares of Ciena and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Wednesday. Finally, Needham & Company LLC decreased their target price on shares of Ciena from $95.00 to $90.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, nine have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $81.38.

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.