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

Juniper Networks, Inc. (NYSE:JNPR) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 5th,Wall Street Journal reports. Shareholders of record on Monday, March 3rd will be paid 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 2.45%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Monday, March 3rd.

Juniper Networks has raised its dividend payment by an average of 3.2% annually over the last three years. Juniper Networks has a dividend payout ratio of 42.5% indicating that 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 Price Performance

Shares of JNPR stock opened at $35.99 on Friday. The company has a current ratio of 1.72, a quick ratio of 1.30 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.35. The stock has a market capitalization of $11.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.35, a P/E/G ratio of 7.70 and a beta of 0.87. Juniper Networks has a twelve month low of $33.72 and a twelve month high of $39.79. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $37.30 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $38.00.

Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR) last released 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 net margin of 4.97% and a return on equity of 7.41%. On average, analysts predict that Juniper Networks will post 0.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have weighed in on JNPR. StockNews.com raised Juniper Networks from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, January 31st. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $40.00 price objective on shares of Juniper Networks in a report on Friday, November 1st. Barclays boosted their price target on shares of Juniper Networks from $37.00 to $39.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Evercore ISI raised 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. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and three have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Juniper Networks currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average 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.