Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) Short Interest Down 12.2% in January

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) was the target of a large decline in short interest during the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 9,760,000 shares, a decline of 12.2% from the January 15th total of 11,120,000 shares. Currently, 3.0% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 4,470,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.2 days.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 1.9% during the 4th quarter. Laird Norton Wetherby Wealth Management LLC now owns 17,413 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $652,000 after acquiring an additional 330 shares during the last quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 47.8% in the 4th quarter. EverSource Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 1,123 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $42,000 after buying an additional 363 shares during the last quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 7.4% in the 4th quarter. Townsquare Capital LLC now owns 6,182 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $232,000 after buying an additional 426 shares during the last quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 60.3% in the 3rd quarter. Venturi Wealth Management LLC now owns 1,188 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $46,000 after buying an additional 447 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Wahed Invest LLC grew its holdings in Juniper Networks by 6.5% in the 4th quarter. Wahed Invest LLC now owns 8,420 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $315,000 after buying an additional 513 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.95% of the company’s stock.

Juniper Networks Trading Down 0.9 %

Shares of Juniper Networks stock traded down $0.33 on Tuesday, reaching $36.22. 3,549,397 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 4,817,377. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $37.27 and a 200-day moving average price of $37.93. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.99 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 42.12, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.95 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.46, a quick ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. Juniper Networks has a fifty-two week low of $33.72 and a fifty-two week high of $39.79.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.58 by ($0.13). Juniper Networks had a net margin of 5.67% and a return on equity of 7.57%. On average, analysts expect that Juniper Networks will post 1.27 EPS for the current year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, March 24th. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be paid a $0.22 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.43%. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 102.33%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

JNPR has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $40.00 price target on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Friday, November 1st. Barclays upped their price objective on Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. Argus lowered Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. StockNews.com upgraded Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Tuesday. Finally, Evercore ISI upgraded Juniper Networks from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Five investment 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 stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $39.80.

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.