Diametric Capital LP Reduces Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Diametric Capital LP lowered its holdings in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) by 10.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 15,378 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 1,889 shares during the period. Diametric Capital LP’s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $576,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,264,855 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,620,269,000 after acquiring an additional 599,214 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its stake in Juniper Networks by 3.8% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 15,758,844 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $614,280,000 after purchasing an additional 574,418 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Juniper Networks by 4.6% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,540,330 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $371,269,000 after buying an additional 417,050 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $262,618,000. Finally, Amundi raised its stake in Juniper Networks by 60.1% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 4,157,158 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $159,510,000 after buying an additional 1,559,884 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. Evercore ISI upgraded Juniper Networks from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. StockNews.com lowered shares of Juniper Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Argus downgraded shares of Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Barclays boosted their price objective on shares of Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, February 5th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Juniper Networks has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $39.80.

Juniper Networks Stock Performance

Shares of JNPR opened at $36.20 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a current ratio of 1.46. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 1 year low of $33.72 and a 1 year high of $39.79. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $36.21 and a 200-day moving average of $37.38. The company has a market cap of $12.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.86.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by ($0.13). Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.67% and a return on equity of 7.57%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were given a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.43%. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 102.33%.

Insider Transactions at Juniper Networks

In other news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total value of $1,115,827.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 94,771 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,413,651.42. This represents a 24.63 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Company insiders own 1.28% of the company’s stock.

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.