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

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) declared a quarterly dividend on Thursday, April 25th, Zacks reports. Stockholders of record on Monday, June 3rd will be paid 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 dividend yield of 2.54%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, June 3rd.

Juniper Networks has increased its dividend payment by an average of 3.2% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 2 years. Juniper Networks has a payout ratio of 35.9% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research 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 Price Performance

Juniper Networks stock traded down $0.24 during mid-day trading on Friday, hitting $34.71. 4,677,184 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 3,295,185. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.36, a quick ratio of 1.35 and a current ratio of 1.80. Juniper Networks has a one year low of $24.87 and a one year high of $38.04. The stock has a market cap of $11.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.31, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.29 and a beta of 0.98. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $36.79 and a 200-day moving average price of $32.78.

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

Insider Transactions at Juniper Networks

In other Juniper Networks news, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,555 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, April 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $37.06, for a total transaction of $205,868.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,003,429 shares in the company, valued at approximately $37,187,078.74. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Juniper Networks news, CEO Rami Rahim sold 5,555 shares of Juniper Networks stock in a transaction on Friday, April 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $37.06, for a total value of $205,868.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,003,429 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $37,187,078.74. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 79,267 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.97, for a total value of $2,930,500.99. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 69,337 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,563,388.89. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 216,302 shares of company stock valued at $8,005,602. Insiders own 1.29% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms have recently commented on JNPR. StockNews.com initiated coverage on Juniper Networks in a research note on Thursday. They issued a “hold” rating for the company. KeyCorp reissued a “sector weight” rating on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “hold” rating and issued a $40.00 target price (up from $35.00) on shares of Juniper Networks in a research note on Thursday, January 11th. Morgan Stanley raised shares of Juniper Networks from an “underweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and set a $40.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, January 11th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of Juniper Networks from $40.00 to $41.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and two have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $34.55.

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.