Ritholtz Wealth Management Boosts Stake in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Ritholtz Wealth Management boosted its stake in shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) by 31.3% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 7,249 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 1,727 shares during the period. Ritholtz Wealth Management’s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $262,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. US Bancorp DE lifted its holdings in Juniper Networks by 4.5% during the fourth quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 15,394 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $577,000 after buying an additional 660 shares during the period. Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA purchased a new stake in Juniper Networks during the fourth quarter worth $8,645,000. Proficio Capital Partners LLC purchased a new stake in Juniper Networks during the fourth quarter worth $1,926,000. Elevation Point Wealth Partners LLC lifted its holdings in Juniper Networks by 7.0% during the first quarter. Elevation Point Wealth Partners LLC now owns 5,795 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $210,000 after buying an additional 380 shares during the period. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its holdings in Juniper Networks by 3,022.2% during the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 172,409 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $6,239,000 after buying an additional 166,887 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Wall Street Zen raised Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Barclays upped their price target 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, Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $40.00 price target on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Friday, May 2nd. Five equities 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. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $40.00.

Juniper Networks Price Performance

NYSE JNPR opened at $36.04 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 1.49 and a quick ratio of 1.16. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $35.81 and its 200 day moving average price is $36.31. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 1 year low of $33.42 and a 1 year high of $39.79. The company has a market cap of $12.05 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 34.32, a PEG ratio of 1.98 and a beta of 0.78.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last released its earnings results on Thursday, May 1st. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 earnings per share (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 the consensus estimate of $1.28 billion. Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 8.71% and a net margin of 6.78%. The firm’s revenue was up 11.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.29 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, June 23rd. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, June 2nd. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio is currently 83.81%.

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.