Alyeska Investment Group L.P. Acquires Shares of 360,508 Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Alyeska Investment Group L.P. bought a new position in shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 360,508 shares of the network equipment provider's stock, valued at approximately $13,501,000. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. owned 0.11% of Juniper Networks as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently modified their holdings of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Juniper Networks by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,264,855 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $1,620,269,000 after buying an additional 599,214 shares during the period. FIL Ltd grew its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 20.5% in the fourth 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. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 3.7% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,897,002 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $370,461,000 after purchasing an additional 356,672 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in Juniper Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $262,618,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 17.8% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 6,525,290 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $244,372,000 after buying an additional 987,431 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.95% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. Argus lowered shares of Juniper Networks from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Evercore ISI raised shares of Juniper Networks from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $40.00 price target on the stock in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. StockNews.com raised Juniper Networks from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Friday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities restated a "neutral" rating and set a $40.00 target price on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Friday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Juniper Networks has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $39.80.

Insider Activity

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the company'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 completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at $3,413,651.42. This represents a 24.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. 1.28% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Juniper Networks Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of NYSE:JNPR opened at $36.64 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $35.52 and a 200 day moving average of $36.70. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $33.42 and a 52-week high of $39.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a current ratio of 1.46. The firm has a market capitalization of $12.25 billion, a PE ratio of 42.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.84.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.41 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $1.28 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 7.57% and a net margin of 5.67%. The company's revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.29 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The firm 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 $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 2nd. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.40%. Juniper Networks's payout ratio is 102.33%.

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.

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