Trexquant Investment LP Purchases New Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Trexquant Investment LP acquired a new position in shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The fund acquired 105,600 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,955,000.

Several other hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of JNPR. Cerity Partners LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 80.2% in the 3rd quarter. Cerity Partners LLC now owns 17,324 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $675,000 after acquiring an additional 7,709 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its stake in Juniper Networks by 19.3% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 53,118 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,071,000 after purchasing an additional 8,577 shares in the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC bought a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks during the third quarter worth $224,000. Captrust Financial Advisors acquired a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the third quarter valued at $210,000. Finally, Investment Management Corp of Ontario raised its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 47.9% in the third quarter. Investment Management Corp of Ontario now owns 10,810 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $421,000 after buying an additional 3,500 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on JNPR shares. Argus lowered shares of 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 objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. StockNews.com cut Juniper Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 5th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $39.80.

Juniper Networks Stock Down 3.7 %

Shares of Juniper Networks stock opened at $33.94 on Friday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $35.93 and a 200 day simple moving average of $37.29. The stock has a market cap of $11.31 billion, a PE ratio of 39.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.86. The company has a quick ratio of 1.14, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $33.72 and a 12 month high of $39.79.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.58 by ($0.13). Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 7.57% and a net margin of 5.67%. Research analysts predict that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 EPS for the current year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.59%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 3rd. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 102.33%.

Insider Activity at Juniper Networks

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of Juniper Networks stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 94,771 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,413,651.42. The trade was a 24.63 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. 1.28% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Juniper Networks 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.