American Century Companies Inc. Decreases Position in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR)

American Century Companies Inc. decreased its stake in Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR - Free Report) by 96.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 44,380 shares of the network equipment provider's stock after selling 1,227,716 shares during the quarter. American Century Companies Inc.'s holdings in Juniper Networks were worth $1,662,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Pacer Advisors Inc. boosted its position in Juniper Networks by 25.5% during the fourth quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 37,696 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $1,412,000 after acquiring an additional 7,668 shares during the last quarter. Empirical Financial Services LLC d.b.a. Empirical Wealth Management purchased a new stake in shares of Juniper Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,374,000. US Bancorp DE grew its position in shares of Juniper Networks by 4.5% in the fourth quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 15,394 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $577,000 after purchasing an additional 660 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV increased its holdings in shares of Juniper Networks by 12.1% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 88,162 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $3,302,000 after purchasing an additional 9,548 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Principal Financial Group Inc. lifted its position in Juniper Networks by 5.1% during the third quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 446,529 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $17,406,000 after buying an additional 21,651 shares in the last quarter. 91.95% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

JNPR has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a report on Wednesday, February 5th. StockNews.com cut Juniper Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, March 28th. Evercore ISI upgraded Juniper Networks from an "in-line" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $40.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, February 4th. Finally, Argus lowered shares of Juniper Networks from a "buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Friday, February 7th. Five 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 stock currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $39.80.

Juniper Networks Trading Down 1.1 %

NYSE:JNPR traded down $0.37 on Tuesday, reaching $34.41. 1,133,627 shares of the company's stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,275,231. The firm has a market capitalization of $11.47 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 40.02, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 0.84. Juniper Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $33.42 and a 52-week high of $39.79. The company has a quick ratio of 1.14, a current ratio of 1.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25. The business has a fifty day moving average of $35.76 and a 200-day moving average of $37.06.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR - Get Free Report) last announced its 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 return on equity of 7.57% and a net margin of 5.67%. As a group, analysts expect that Juniper Networks, Inc. will post 1.33 earnings per share for the current year.

Juniper Networks Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, March 24th. Investors of record on Monday, March 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.22 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, March 3rd. This represents a $0.88 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.56%. Juniper Networks's payout ratio is 102.33%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Juniper Networks news, COO Manoj Leelanivas sold 30,978 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $36.02, for a total transaction of $1,115,827.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer now owns 94,771 shares in the company, valued at $3,413,651.42. The trade was a 24.63 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. 1.28% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.