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Ciena

CIEN on NYSE. Ciena sells networking hardware, software, and services to network operators. Market value $55.3bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to July 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to October 2025.

Should I look at this?

Good business, but not cheap right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See cheaper Technology stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to July 2026
1.3%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $1.29 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to July 2026
86.2×full

You pay 86.2 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to October 2025
6.2%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 6 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 72 of 100. Price score: 12 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$443.65 a share, 201% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $147.36 to $637.51.

Pays no dividend

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.5
-0.3
0.1
0.4
0.7
0.8
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jul '26
Revenue
$3.6bn$3.6bn$4.4bn$4.0bn$4.8bn
Operating margin
13.7%6.1%8.2%4.1%4.1%
Debt to equity
0.250.410.560.570.58
Shares outstanding
0.15bn0.15bn0.14bn0.14bn0.14bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive4 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)No
  • Debt0.58× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 6.2% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 4% fewer since 2021

The quarter to July 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $1.7 billion last quarter, up 37% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $266 million, up 430% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 12 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 5 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $814 million, up from $605 million.
  • 1% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Debt is $789 million more than cash, up from $482 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
October 2024$1.1bn
January 2025$1.1bn
April 2025$1.1bn
July 2025$1.2bn
October 2025$1.4bn
January 2026$1.4bn
April 2026$1.6bn
July 2026$1.7bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
October 2024$37m
January 2025$45m
April 2025$9m
July 2025$50m
October 2025$19m
January 2026$150m
April 2026$218m
July 2026$266m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
10 December 2026
Last annual report (10-K)
12 December 2025
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
3 December 2026

Who owns it

5 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 7 last quarter. 1,224 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

4 investors own more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 11 sold $99m, $95m of it under preset trading plans.

  • Graff Marc D.
    EVP & Chief Financial Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 October 2026
    Shares
    97
    Price
    $355.19
    Value
    $34,453
  • Kosaraju Sheela
    EVP & Chief Legal Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 October 2026
    Shares
    2,101
    Price
    $355.19
    Value
    $746,254
  • Phipps Jason
    EVP & Chief Customer Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 October 2026
    Shares
    2,629
    Price
    $355.19
    Value
    $933,795
  • Cumello Joseph
    EVP & General Mgr.
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    25 September 2026
    Shares
    1,586
    Price
    $358.52
    Value
    $568,605
  • Claflin Bruce L.
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    24 September 2026
    Shares
    2,857
    Price
    $355.91
    Value
    $1m
  • NEVENS THOMAS MICHAEL
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    23 September 2026
    Shares
    3,738
    Price
    $359.04
    Value
    $1m
  • DiPerna Dino
    EVP & Chief R&D Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    16 September 2026
    Shares
    249
    Price
    $350.00
    Value
    $87,150
  • Gage Brodie
    EVP & Chief Product &
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    15 September 2026
    Shares
    1,200
    Price
    $324.86
    Value
    $389,832
  • DiPerna Dino
    EVP & Chief R&D Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    15 September 2026
    Shares
    249
    Price
    $324.86
    Value
    $80,890
  • Rothenstein David M
    EVP & Chief Strategy Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    15 September 2026
    Shares
    2,500
    Price
    $330.48
    Value
    $826,208

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

Warning signs in its filings

Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.

None of the warning signs we check for were found.

We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.

We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 12 Dec 2025, plus the 10-Q filed 3 Sep 2026 and 6 later 8-Ks.

A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.

What could go wrong

  • It isn't cheap on profits: 86.2× operating profit.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
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What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.