Analysts Set Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) PT at $39.80

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) has received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the six brokerages that are covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12 month target price among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $39.80.

JNPR has been the topic of several research analyst reports. Argus cut Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, February 7th. StockNews.com cut shares of Juniper Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, March 28th. Evercore ISI raised shares of 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. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on shares of Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th.

Juniper Networks Trading Down 0.4 %

Shares of JNPR stock opened at $34.79 on Friday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $35.76 and a 200 day moving average of $37.06. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.14. Juniper Networks has a 1-year low of $33.42 and a 1-year high of $39.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.59 billion, a PE ratio of 40.45, a P/E/G ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.84.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate 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, sell-side analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks will post 1.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.53%. Juniper Networks’s payout ratio is 102.33%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total transaction of $1,115,827.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at $3,413,651.42. The trade was a 24.63 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 1.28% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Juniper Networks

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 25.5% during the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 37,696 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,412,000 after acquiring an additional 7,668 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management purchased a new position in shares of Juniper Networks during the 4th quarter valued at about $1,374,000. US Bancorp DE grew its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 4.5% during the 4th quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 15,394 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $577,000 after acquiring an additional 660 shares during the period. KBC Group NV raised its stake in Juniper Networks by 12.1% during the 4th quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 88,162 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,302,000 after acquiring an additional 9,548 shares during the period. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its holdings in Juniper Networks by 5.1% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 446,529 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $17,406,000 after purchasing an additional 21,651 shares in the last quarter. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Juniper Networks

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.