Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) Sees Large Increase in Short Interest

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) saw a large increase in short interest during the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 13,460,000 shares, an increase of 18.6% from the February 29th total of 11,350,000 shares. Currently, 4.2% of the shares of the stock are sold short. Based on an average daily volume of 5,130,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.6 days.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms recently issued reports on JNPR. KeyCorp restated a “sector weight” rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Morgan Stanley upgraded Juniper Networks from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $40.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Barclays reissued an “equal weight” rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Wednesday, January 10th. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “hold” rating and set a $40.00 price target (up from $35.00) on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price objective on shares of Juniper Networks from $31.00 to $40.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, January 10th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $34.27.

Juniper Networks Stock Performance

Shares of Juniper Networks stock opened at $37.06 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 1.80 and a quick ratio of 1.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 39.01, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.59 and a beta of 0.98. The business has a 50-day moving average of $37.05 and a 200 day moving average of $31.60. Juniper Networks has a 12 month low of $24.87 and a 12 month high of $38.04.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.44 by ($0.01). Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.57% and a return on equity of 11.72%. The business had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.41 billion. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Juniper Networks will post 1.37 earnings per share for the current year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, March 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, March 1st were given a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.37%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Thursday, February 29th. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio is currently 92.63%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,556 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $29.29, for a total value of $162,735.24. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 857,186 shares in the company, valued at $25,106,977.94. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. In other news, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,556 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.29, for a total transaction of $162,735.24. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 857,186 shares in the company, valued at approximately $25,106,977.94. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Robert Mobassaly sold 5,496 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.35, for a total value of $199,779.60. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 30,888 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,122,778.80. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 221,800 shares of company stock valued at $8,122,949 in the last 90 days. 1.29% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Juniper Networks

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Juniper Networks in the 4th quarter valued at about $136,778,000. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 11,418.1% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 2,829,071 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $83,401,000 after buying an additional 2,804,509 shares during the period. BlackRock Inc. raised its holdings in Juniper Networks by 8.8% in the first quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 34,426,578 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,184,963,000 after acquiring an additional 2,776,885 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Juniper Networks by 10.9% in the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 16,412,994 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $514,219,000 after acquiring an additional 1,613,651 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Man Group plc increased its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 227.6% in the 4th quarter. Man Group plc now owns 1,718,992 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $54,939,000 after purchasing an additional 1,194,259 shares during the last quarter. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.