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

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 5th,Wall Street Journal reports. Investors of record on Monday, March 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.22 per share by the network equipment provider on Monday, March 24th. This represents a $0.88 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.44%. The ex-dividend date is Monday, March 3rd.

Juniper Networks has increased its dividend by an average of 3.2% annually over the last three years. Juniper Networks has a dividend payout ratio of 42.5% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Juniper Networks to earn $1.27 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 69.3%.

Juniper Networks Trading Up 1.2 %

Shares of NYSE:JNPR traded up $0.42 on Wednesday, reaching $36.07. 3,463,012 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 4,862,464. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $37.30 and its 200 day simple moving average is $38.02. Juniper Networks has a 52 week low of $33.72 and a 52 week high of $39.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.94 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 7.70 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a current ratio of 1.72, a quick ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 4th. The network equipment provider reported $0.45 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.58 by ($0.13). Juniper Networks had a return on equity of 7.41% and a net margin of 4.97%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Juniper Networks will post 0.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

JNPR has been the subject of several research analyst reports. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Juniper Networks from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 31st. Evercore ISI raised shares of Juniper Networks from an “in-line” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $40.00 target price for the company in a research report on Tuesday. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Juniper Networks in a research report on Friday, November 1st. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $39.80.

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.