Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) Shares Bought by ProShare Advisors LLC

ProShare Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) by 11.3% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 73,256 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 7,449 shares during the quarter. ProShare Advisors LLC’s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $2,743,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Mufg Securities Americas Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $183,000. Nissay Asset Management Corp Japan ADV raised its stake in Juniper Networks by 1.5% during the 4th quarter. Nissay Asset Management Corp Japan ADV now owns 41,152 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,544,000 after purchasing an additional 601 shares during the period. Nomura Holdings Inc. acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks during the 4th quarter valued at $408,000. NorthRock Partners LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the fourth quarter valued at $1,342,000. Finally, Nuveen Asset Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 21.1% in the fourth quarter. Nuveen Asset Management LLC now owns 1,197,720 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $44,855,000 after buying an additional 208,334 shares during the period. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

JNPR has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $40.00 price objective on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. 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. Argus cut shares of Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. StockNews.com raised shares of Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, Barclays increased 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 report on Monday, May 5th. Five investment 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’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Juniper Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $40.00.

Juniper Networks Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE JNPR opened at $36.13 on Wednesday. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $35.62 and a 200 day simple moving average of $36.49. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 52 week low of $33.42 and a 52 week high of $39.79. The stock has a market cap of $12.08 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.01, a PEG 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 (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 company’s revenue for the quarter was up 11.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.29 earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

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

Insider Activity

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at $3,413,651.42. This trade represents a 24.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 1.37% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Juniper Networks 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.