Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) Coverage Initiated by Analysts at StockNews.com

StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) in a report issued on Wednesday. The brokerage issued a hold rating on the network equipment provider’s stock.

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued research reports about the company. Morgan Stanley raised Juniper Networks from an underweight rating to an equal weight rating and set a $40.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their target price on Juniper Networks from $31.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. KeyCorp reiterated a sector weight rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a hold rating and set a $40.00 price target (up from $35.00) on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a hold rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of Hold and an average price target of $34.27.

Juniper Networks Trading Up 0.1 %

Shares of NYSE JNPR opened at $36.48 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $11.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 38.40, a PEG ratio of 7.48 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 1.35 and a current ratio of 1.80. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $36.98 and a 200 day simple moving average of $32.41. Juniper Networks has a 52 week low of $24.87 and a 52 week high of $38.04.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, January 30th. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.44 by ($0.01). The company had revenue of $1.36 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.41 billion. Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 11.72% and a net margin of 5.57%. On average, research analysts predict that Juniper Networks will post 1.37 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, March 1st were paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.41%. Juniper Networks’s payout ratio is 92.63%.

Insider Activity at Juniper Networks

In related news, SVP Robert Mobassaly sold 5,173 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.78, for a total value of $190,262.94. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 36,061 shares in the company, valued at $1,326,323.58. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Juniper Networks news, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,555 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, April 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.06, for a total value of $205,868.30. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,003,429 shares in the company, valued at $37,187,078.74. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Robert Mobassaly sold 5,173 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.78, for a total value of $190,262.94. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 36,061 shares in the company, valued at $1,326,323.58. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 216,302 shares of company stock worth $8,005,602. 1.29% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Juniper Networks

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks during the fourth quarter worth $136,778,000. Pacer Advisors Inc. lifted its stake in Juniper Networks by 11,418.1% in the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 2,829,071 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $83,401,000 after buying an additional 2,804,509 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. lifted its stake in Juniper Networks by 8.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 34,426,578 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,184,963,000 after buying an additional 2,776,885 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 10.9% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,412,994 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $514,219,000 after purchasing an additional 1,613,651 shares during the period. Finally, Man Group plc raised its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 227.6% during the fourth quarter. Man Group plc now owns 1,718,992 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $54,939,000 after purchasing an additional 1,194,259 shares during the period. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Juniper Networks Company Profile

Juniper Networks, Inc designs, develops, and sells network products and services worldwide. The company offers routing products, such as ACX series universal access routers to deploy high-bandwidth services; MX series Ethernet routers that function as a universal edge platform; PTX series packet transport routers; wide-area network SDN controllers; and session smart routers.