Jim Cramer’s 5 Stock Q1 Recap: S&P 500 Winners vs. Nasdaq 100’s Worst Performers

3. Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN)

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer mentioned the stock during the episode and said:

Going further down the list, the eighth-best performer, Ciena, is, it’s in the same boat. It’s another fiber optic play that’s up 66% thanks to a surging demand for networking from the data center. Ciena also returned to its place in the S&P 500 back in February. As long as we keep building these things, they’re going to need companies like Ciena. So again, you see the pattern that I’m concerned about?

These stocks just came right back today, and they provided the leadership for today and then the last day of the quarter. Here’s the problem. We know how bad the last quarter was, right? So therefore, we know these don’t have a lot of followers, and they don’t have a lot of followers even today.

Ciena Corporation (NYSE:CIEN) builds networking equipment, including optical systems, routers, and switches, and provides software to manage and automate networks.