Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC Purchases Shares of 45,783 Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Lighthouse Investment Partners LLC acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR - Free Report) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm acquired 45,783 shares of the network equipment provider's stock, valued at approximately $1,715,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in 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 purchasing an additional 599,214 shares during the period. FIL Ltd boosted its holdings 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 during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings 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 worth $370,461,000 after buying an additional 356,672 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new position in Juniper Networks in the 4th quarter valued at about $262,618,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in 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 acquiring an additional 987,431 shares during the period. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Juniper Networks Price Performance

Shares of Juniper Networks stock traded up $0.13 during trading on Monday, reaching $36.18. 473,688 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,257,812. The firm's 50-day moving average price is $35.60 and its 200 day moving average price is $36.51. The company has a market cap of $12.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 42.06, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a quick ratio of 1.14 and a current ratio of 1.46. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $33.42 and a 1-year high of $39.79.

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

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The company 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 dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.43%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 2nd. Juniper Networks's payout ratio is 83.81%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 owns 94,771 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,413,651.42. This represents a 24.63% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. 1.37% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

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.