The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE:JNPR). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Technology company by 1.62% to 39.28 million shares with purchase of 0.63 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 12.22% valued currently at $1.14 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 3.0 million to 24.44 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 10.90% or 1.61 million shares – to 16.41 million shares.
With over 4.9 million Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) shares trading Monday and a closing price of $28.28 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $138.51 million. The shares have shown a negative half year performance of -9.74% and its price on 09/18/23 lost nearly -0.53%. Currently, there are 319.30M common shares owned by the public and among those 317.14M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 19 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for JNPR have a consensus price objective of $32.57. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $38.00 and a low of $28.00. The average price target is 13.49% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -1.0% over that period. But an upside of 25.58% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $34.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 108 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 42 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 1,080,767 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 66 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 966,151 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in Juniper Networks Inc. are Dodge & Cox Stock Fund, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Dodge & Cox Stock Fund owns 26.58 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $773.98 million. The company bought an additional 95000.0 shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 8.27% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF sold 574.0 shares to see its total holdings shrink to 10.09 million shares valued at over $293.7 million and representing 3.14% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 37760.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 7.74 million shares at a value of $225.34 million. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.41% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) opened at $28.34, down -$0.09 from a prior closing price of $28.43. However, the script later moved the day high at 28.46, down -0.53%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of -1.94% and -12.90% over the past three months. JNPR shares are trading -11.51% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 1.07% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $25.18 and touched a high of $34.53 over the same period. JNPR has an average intraday trading volume of 3.77 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by -0.96%, -1.91%, and -8.02% respectively.
Institutional ownership of Juniper Networks Inc. (NYSE: JNPR) shares accounts for 93.40% of the company’s 319.30M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 34.17%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 57.37% and 3.91% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $9.06B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.91. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 22.62, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $1.25. The company has a PEG of 1.91 and a Quick Ratio of 1.20 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 0.37. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.37% over the week and 1.45% over the month.
Analysts forecast that Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) will achieve an EPS of $0.55 for the current quarter, $0.63 for the next quarter and $2.35 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.52 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.58. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.58 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 87.60%, and 6.03% over the next financial year. EPS should grow at an annualized rate of 11.86% over the next five years, compared to -1.60% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 19 brokerage firm advisors rate Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) as a “Moderate Buy” at a consensus score of 2.50. Specifically, 7 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 8 of the 19 advise that investors “hold,” and 1 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the JNPR, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Raymond James stated their Outperform rating for the stock in a research note on July 24, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $38-$37.
