Ciena (CIEN) stock slipped 3.7% in premarket trading on Friday despite a wave of analyst price target upgrades following the networking company’s stronger-than-expected fiscal second quarter results.
The stock has surged around 633% over the past year, so a bit of a pullback after the run-up isn’t exactly a shock.
Ciena reported Q2 revenue of $1.57 billion, a 40% jump year-over-year and ahead of the $1.51 billion consensus estimate. EPS of $1.64 also cleared the $1.46 bar analysts had set.
The company also issued Q3 guidance above Wall Street expectations and raised its full-year fiscal 2026 outlook.
Barclays analyst Tim Long was one of the most bullish voices post-earnings, lifting his price target to $607 from $372 while holding his Overweight rating.
Long pointed to gross margin strength in the quarter, driven by engineering cost reductions, product mix, and pricing. He expects those pricing actions to flow more meaningfully through the model in the second half of the year as lower-priced backlog gets worked through.
Looking further out, Long sees margin improvement in fiscal 2027 from hyper-rail product mix and continued cost discipline.
UBS raised its target too — to $508 from $285 — but held its Neutral rating, taking a more measured view on valuation.
The firm acknowledged Ciena’s strong results and above-consensus guidance but flagged that at a P/E of 206, the stock carries a heavy earnings multiple. UBS expects that multiple to compress from the mid-80s to around 40 times calendar year 2027 consensus EPS estimates — more in line with optical peers like Lumentum, Corning, and Coherent.
UBS sees EPS growing at a mid-40s percent compound annual growth rate over the next two years, with most of the leverage coming from operating expenses rather than gross margin expansion. Revenue mix, including both systems and pluggables, along with supply chain constraints, were cited as factors limiting gross margin upside.
The firm does expect strong AI infrastructure demand to sustain order growth through fiscal 2027 and into 2028.
Other analyst firms also moved their targets higher after the print. Stifel held its Buy rating with a $615 target. Needham raised to $600, citing cloud growth. Rosenblatt went to $720. Raymond James landed at $530, pointing to datacenter and new product traction.
The post Ciena (CIEN) Stock: Barclays and UBS Raise Price Targets After Strong Q2 Results appeared first on CoinCentral.
