Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) Receives $40.00 Average Target Price from Brokerages

Shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) have earned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the six research firms that are presently covering the company, MarketBeat reports. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12-month price target among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $40.00.

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on JNPR shares. Argus cut Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $40.00 target price on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Friday, May 2nd. Barclays upped their target price on Juniper Networks from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, May 5th. Wall Street Zen raised Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, Evercore ISI raised Juniper Networks from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, February 4th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Juniper Networks

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in JNPR. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks during the 4th quarter valued at about $262,618,000. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. bought a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks during the 1st quarter valued at about $204,166,000. FIL Ltd boosted its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 20.5% during the 4th quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 12,752,814 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $477,593,000 after purchasing an additional 2,167,567 shares in the last quarter. Amundi boosted its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 60.1% during the 4th quarter. Amundi now owns 4,157,158 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $159,510,000 after purchasing an additional 1,559,884 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Hsbc Holdings PLC boosted its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 52.9% during the 1st quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 3,888,034 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $140,430,000 after purchasing an additional 1,345,129 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Juniper Networks Stock Up 0.2%

NYSE:JNPR opened at $35.95 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.80, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.82. Juniper Networks has a twelve month low of $33.42 and a twelve month high of $39.79. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $35.60 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $36.31. The company has a quick ratio of 1.14, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25.

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

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 23rd. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 2nd will be paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 2nd. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.45%. Juniper Networks’s payout ratio is 83.81%.

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.