Investors Purchase High Volume of Put Options on Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR)

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR - Get Free Report) saw unusually large options trading on Friday. Stock traders acquired 16,520 put options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 152% compared to the average daily volume of 6,561 put options.

Institutional Trading of Juniper Networks

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 1.4% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,264,855 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $1,620,269,000 after acquiring an additional 599,214 shares in the last quarter. FIL Ltd increased its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 2,167,567 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in 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 worth $370,461,000 after purchasing an additional 356,672 shares in the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the 4th quarter valued at about $262,618,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 17.8% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 6,525,290 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $244,372,000 after purchasing an additional 987,431 shares during the period. 91.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Juniper Networks Trading Up 0.2%

NYSE:JNPR traded up $0.08 during trading hours on Tuesday, hitting $35.95. The stock had a trading volume of 1,720,830 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,242,908. The business's 50 day moving average is $35.61 and its 200-day moving average is $36.31. 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 company has a market cap of $12.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 41.80, a P/E/G ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.82. Juniper Networks has a one year low of $33.42 and a one year high of $39.79.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 1st. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $1.28 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.28 billion. Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.67% and a return on equity of 7.57%. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.29 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks 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. Investors of record on Monday, June 2nd will be given 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 dividend payout ratio is presently 83.81%.

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.