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Technology Stocks : Ciena (CIEN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Korn who wrote (1418)	2/22/1998 11:43:00 AM
From: Jeff Jordan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12623

Feb 20, 1998 (6:12 PM ET) - The Motley Fool Evening News Ciena Corp. (Nasdaq:CIEN - news) , a provider of bandwidth enhancement technology for fiberoptic communications networks, was slammed for $16 1/8 to $42 after announcing in conjunction with its Q1 1998 results that a major customer, WorldCom Inc. (Nasdaq:WCOM - news) , will delay ordering new equipment until "the latter part of 1998." Ciena reported Q1 EPS of $0.37, which beat both estimates and Q4 1997 results by $0.02. The results represented a 184% increase over Q1 1997 EPS of $0.13. Ciena noted that the WorldCom delay will result in Q2 revenue that is "sequentially flat or possibly lower" than the first quarter, but the company was adamant that the push-out was not due to competitive pressures from companies like Lucent (NYSE:LU - news) . Ciena stated in its conference call that it is still "comfortable" with 1998 revenue estimates of $600 million (due to the hope that AT&T and others might fill the revenue shortfall), and it expects gross margins to narrow to the 52-55% range and operating expenses to possibly rise to 32% of revenues. Using the conservative end of these figures, Ciena may still make $120 million in operating earnings for the year. Ciena currently trades at 30 times 1998 EPS estimates of $1.47 on mean revenue estimates of $565 million, which compared with its present growth rate is still by no means cheap.