Mufg Securities Americas Inc. Purchases Shares of 4,888 Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Mufg Securities Americas Inc. bought a new position in shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 4,888 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $183,000.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $262,618,000. FIL Ltd lifted its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 20.5% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 12,752,814 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $477,593,000 after purchasing an additional 2,167,567 shares during the period. Amundi lifted its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 60.1% during the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 4,157,158 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $159,510,000 after purchasing an additional 1,559,884 shares during the period. Melqart Asset Management UK Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Juniper Networks during the fourth quarter worth $43,413,000. Finally, Hudson Bay Capital Management LP raised its stake in Juniper Networks by 70.1% during the fourth quarter. Hudson Bay Capital Management LP now owns 2,811,005 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $105,272,000 after buying an additional 1,158,713 shares during the last quarter. 91.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Juniper Networks Trading Down 0.5%

NYSE:JNPR opened at $36.08 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.14. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $35.60 and a 200-day moving average of $36.53. The company has a market cap of $12.06 billion, a PE ratio of 41.95, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.82. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $33.42 and a one year high of $39.79.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.28 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.28 billion. Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.67% and a return on equity of 7.57%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.29 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 23rd. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 2nd. Juniper Networks’s payout ratio is presently 83.81%.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on JNPR shares. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Juniper Networks from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, May 5th. Evercore ISI raised shares of Juniper Networks from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 4th. StockNews.com raised shares of Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Argus lowered shares of Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Friday, May 2nd. Five 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 data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $40.00.

Insider Transactions at Juniper Networks

In related news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total transaction of $1,115,827.56. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer now directly owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,413,651.42. The trade was a 24.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. 1.37% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.