Better Buy: Infinera Corporation vs. Ciena Corporation

Infinera (NASDAQ: INFN) and Ciena (NYSE: CIEN) were both market laggards this year, with the former staying nearly flat and the latter dropping almost 10%. Both optical transport solution providers were cited as turnaround plays on the "super cycle" in fiber upgrades -- fueled by the surging use of cloud services, streaming media, and other data-intensive tasks -- yet they failed to impress investors.

However, contrarian investors might be wondering if either stock could rebound later this year. Let's take a closer at the two companies' core businesses, growth trajectories, and headwinds to find out.

Source: Getty Images.

Source: Fool.com