Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC Boosts Stock Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) by 1.9% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 17,413 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 330 shares during the quarter. Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $652,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in JNPR. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $262,618,000. FIL Ltd increased its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 20.5% in the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 12,752,814 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $477,593,000 after buying an additional 2,167,567 shares in the last quarter. Amundi increased its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 60.1% in 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. Melqart Asset Management UK Ltd purchased a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $43,413,000. Finally, Hudson Bay Capital Management LP increased its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 70.1% in the fourth quarter. Hudson Bay Capital Management LP now owns 2,811,005 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $105,272,000 after buying an additional 1,158,713 shares in the last quarter. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total value of $1,115,827.56. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 94,771 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,413,651.42. This represents a 24.63% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.37% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $40.00 price objective on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Argus cut Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. StockNews.com upgraded Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Barclays boosted their price target on Juniper Networks from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, May 5th. Finally, 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 research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $40.00.

Juniper Networks Stock Performance

NYSE JNPR opened at $36.03 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $35.58 and its two-hundred day moving average is $36.59. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.04 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.90, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.82. 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 fifty-two week low of $33.42 and a fifty-two week high of $39.79.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.28 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 7.57% and a net margin of 5.67%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.29 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 2nd will be paid a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 2nd. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 83.81%.

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.