BNP Paribas Financial Markets Raises Stake in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

BNP Paribas Financial Markets increased its stake in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR - Free Report) by 26.2% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 640,329 shares of the network equipment provider's stock after buying an additional 132,981 shares during the period. BNP Paribas Financial Markets owned 0.19% of Juniper Networks worth $23,980,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,264,855 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $1,620,269,000 after purchasing an additional 599,214 shares during the period. FIL Ltd grew 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 worth $477,593,000 after buying an additional 2,167,567 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,897,002 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $370,461,000 after buying an additional 356,672 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the fourth quarter valued at about $262,618,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. lifted its stake in Juniper Networks by 17.8% in the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 6,525,290 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $244,372,000 after acquiring an additional 987,431 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 91.95% of the company's stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on JNPR shares. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Juniper Networks from $39.00 to $40.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Monday, May 5th. Evercore ISI upgraded Juniper Networks from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $40.00 target price for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Argus downgraded Juniper Networks from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Rosenblatt Securities restated a "neutral" rating and set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Juniper Networks from a "buy" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Friday, May 2nd. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $40.00.

Juniper Networks Trading Up 0.1 %

Juniper Networks stock opened at $36.33 on Friday. 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 stock has a market cap of $12.14 billion, a PE ratio of 42.24, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.82. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $35.57 and a two-hundred day moving average of $36.64. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $33.42 and a one year high of $39.79.

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 during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.28 billion. Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.67% and a return on equity of 7.57%. Juniper Networks's revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm posted $0.29 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 23rd. Investors of record on Monday, June 2nd will be given a $0.22 dividend. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.42%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 2nd. Juniper Networks's payout ratio is 83.81%.

Insider Activity

In other news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total value of $1,115,827.56. Following the sale, the chief operating officer now 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 legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 1.28% of the company's stock.

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.

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