Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Boosts Stock Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Daiwa Securities Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) by 5.8% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 28,274 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,559 shares during the quarter. Daiwa Securities Group Inc.’s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $834,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 4.8% during the third quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 46,266 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,286,000 after purchasing an additional 2,134 shares during the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 2,096.4% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 452,455 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $13,212,000 after buying an additional 431,855 shares during the period. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. boosted its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 71.8% during the third quarter. Assenagon Asset Management S.A. now owns 324,954 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $9,030,000 after buying an additional 135,823 shares during the period. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank boosted its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 112.1% during the third quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 181,032 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,031,000 after buying an additional 95,672 shares during the period. Finally, Retirement Systems of Alabama boosted its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 37.2% during the third quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 1,657,664 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $46,066,000 after buying an additional 449,575 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities increased their target price on shares of Juniper Networks from $31.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 10th. Jefferies Financial Group restated a “hold” rating and issued a $40.00 price objective (up previously from $35.00) on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Barclays restated an “equal weight” rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Wednesday, January 10th. Morgan Stanley upgraded shares of Juniper Networks from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $40.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Thursday. They issued a “hold” rating for the company. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, Juniper Networks currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $34.27.

Insider Transactions at Juniper Networks

In other Juniper Networks news, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,556 shares of Juniper Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.10, for a total value of $206,127.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 829,406 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,770,962.60. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 98,530 shares of Juniper Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.00, for a total value of $3,645,610.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 73,684 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,726,308. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,556 shares of Juniper Networks stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.10, for a total transaction of $206,127.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 829,406 shares in the company, valued at approximately $30,770,962.60. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 216,302 shares of company stock valued at $8,005,602 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 1.29% of the company’s stock.

Juniper Networks Trading Down 1.2 %

Shares of JNPR opened at $34.95 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 1.80 and a quick ratio of 1.35. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $36.83 and a 200-day simple moving average of $32.73. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $24.87 and a 1-year high of $38.04. The stock has a market cap of $11.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.48 and a beta of 0.98.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.44 by ($0.01). Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 11.72% and a net margin of 5.57%. The business had revenue of $1.36 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.41 billion. Equities analysts forecast that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.35 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st were paid a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date was Thursday, February 29th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.52%. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 92.63%.

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.