Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) Declares $0.22 Quarterly Dividend

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 25th, Zacks reports. Investors of record on Monday, June 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.22 per share by the network equipment provider on Monday, June 24th. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 3rd.

Juniper Networks has raised its dividend by an average of 3.2% annually over the last three years and has increased its dividend annually for the last 2 consecutive years. Juniper Networks has a payout ratio of 35.9% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Juniper Networks to earn $1.51 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $0.88 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 58.3%.

Juniper Networks Trading Down 0.7 %

NYSE JNPR traded down $0.24 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $34.71. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 4,677,184 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,295,185. Juniper Networks has a 52-week low of $24.87 and a 52-week high of $38.04. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $36.79 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $32.78. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.28 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.29 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a current ratio of 1.80 and a quick ratio of 1.35.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 30th. The network equipment provider reported $0.43 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.44 by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $1.36 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.41 billion. Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 10.07% and a net margin of 4.19%. Research analysts expect that Juniper Networks will post 1.35 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Robert Mobassaly sold 5,173 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.78, for a total value of $190,262.94. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 36,061 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,326,323.58. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Robert Mobassaly sold 5,173 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.78, for a total value of $190,262.94. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 36,061 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,326,323.58. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,556 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.91, for a total value of $205,071.96. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 840,518 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $31,023,519.38. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 216,302 shares of company stock valued at $8,005,602. Corporate insiders own 1.29% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have commented on JNPR shares. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Thursday. They set a “hold” rating on the stock. Barclays boosted their target price on Juniper Networks from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Friday. KeyCorp reiterated a “sector weight” rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Juniper Networks from $31.00 to $40.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 10th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $34.55.

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.