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Ciena looks stretched after rising eightfold in a year to 264x earnings, making it a short candidate around $425-447 once the move up exhausts itself. x.com x.comÂ
The optics trade, including Marvell, Ciena and Nokia, looks like fluff with no meat on the bone for investors to latch onto, and the same goes for CPU names like Arm and neoclouds like Nebius. Multiples are sky high and price action is terrible, with many names down about 35%. x.comÂ
Ciena is becoming an AI infrastructure story rather than a telecom equipment one, because bandwidth between data centers could become the next major constraint as AI capacity spreads across campuses and regions. Its CEO framed Ciena as a critical connectivity layer as larger AI clusters drive structurally higher optical networking demand. Per Bloomberg's framing, the selloff after a Q3 beat looks like an expectations and valuation reset, not weaker demand, possibly a better entry point. x.comÂ
Ciena looks expensive against its earnings: it trades at about 30 times next year's estimated $10.68 a share, versus the 18 times the industry usually gets. That implies fair value of about $169-215, putting the stock 47% above the high end. The read leans on forecasts, since forward earnings are 226% above trailing, and is based on levels only, with no fundamental work. x.comÂ
Ciena is an important but quiet beneficiary of the AI buildout, and its new three-year targets show it. By 2029 it aims to grow revenue about 30% a year, reach roughly 50% gross margin and generate about 20% free cash flow margin. CEO Gary Smith has led it for over 25 years, through the dotcom bust and the financial crisis, when shares hit an all-time low near $5. x.comÂ
Ciena's 30% drop from its high has nothing to do with the business, and both sell-off catalysts have now cleared. It beat EPS by 12%, grew revenue 40% and raised guidance to $6.3B, in line with consensus after a 200% run, while a $2.875B convertible added hedge selling through June 11. Hyperscalers are linking GPU clusters across cities and continents with 800G and 1.6T coherent optics, where Ciena leads data center interconnect, a market doubling to $50B by 2029. Backlog is $7.7B. x.comÂ
Ciena's stronger moat justifies its richer valuation versus Credo, and its recent guidance was good. x.comÂ
Ciena solves inter-data-center bandwidth constraints, one of AI's bottlenecks alongside compute and power, and it trades at a more compelling price after the July selloff. Its $7.7B backlog, with about 80% converting to revenue within a year, is chunky. x.comÂ
Ciena is 47% off its high after a valuation selloff despite strong hyperscaler-driven growth. Revenue grew 37% to $1.67B and adjusted EPS tripled. Backlog is $8.5B and expected to pass $10B by year-end, half of revenue now comes directly from hyperscalers, and data center revenue has quadrupled this year. Management's preliminary 2027 outlook of at least $8.3B implies another 30% growth, with supply tight until 2028. x.comÂ
Ciena's selloff priced a slowdown from 35% to 30% growth, but most of that 30% is already sold at prices Ciena is still raising. Q3 revenue rose 37% to $1.67B, the FY26 guide rose to $6.42B, and the early FY27 floor is at least 30% growth with at least 45% gross margin. Backlog hit $8.5B, expected above $10B by year end, mostly with customer-requested 2027 dates. Ciena is raising prices from high single digits into the low 20s, even on signed orders, which no one does into softening demand. … Show more