Alliancebernstein L.P. Increases Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

Alliancebernstein L.P. increased its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) by 19.2% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The fund owned 2,120,532 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 341,423 shares during the quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P.’s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $79,414,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of JNPR. Wellington Management Group LLP raised its stake in shares of Juniper Networks by 8.5% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 23,672 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $887,000 after purchasing an additional 1,852 shares during the period. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC raised its position in Juniper Networks by 3.6% in the fourth quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 19,746 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $739,000 after acquiring an additional 683 shares during the period. Schroder Investment Management Group raised its position in Juniper Networks by 67.7% in the fourth quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 20,170 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $753,000 after acquiring an additional 8,145 shares during the period. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in Juniper Networks by 736.3% in the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 654,750 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $24,520,000 after acquiring an additional 576,461 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Allstate Corp bought a new position in shares of Juniper Networks during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $276,000. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Juniper Networks Price Performance

Juniper Networks stock opened at $35.20 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 40.92, a PEG ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.86. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $33.72 and a one year high of $39.79. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, a current ratio of 1.46 and a quick ratio of 1.14. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $36.03 and a 200-day moving average price of $37.34.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.58 by ($0.13). Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 7.57% and a net margin of 5.67%. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 EPS for the current year.

Juniper Networks Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Investors of record on Monday, March 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.22 per share. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.50%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, March 3rd. Juniper Networks’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 102.33%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently commented on JNPR. Barclays upped their price objective 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. Argus cut Juniper Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Friday, February 7th. Evercore ISI raised 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. Finally, StockNews.com cut Juniper Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Juniper Networks currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $39.80.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 26th. The stock was 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 directly owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at $3,413,651.42. This represents a 24.63 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Corporate insiders own 1.28% of the company’s stock.

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.