Juniper Networks: 3 Different Insiders Have Sold Shares This Year

In this article, I will feature one tech stock that has seen intensive insider selling during the last 30 days. Intensive insider selling can be defined by the following three criteria:

1. The stock was sold by three or more insiders within one month.


2. The stock was not purchased by any insiders in the month of intensive selling.


3. At least two sellers decreased their holdings by more than 10%.

Juniper Networks (JNPR) designs, develops, and sells products and services that provide network infrastructure for networking requirements of service providers, enterprises, governments, and research and public sector organizations worldwide.

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Insider selling during the last 30 days

Here is a table of Juniper Networks' insider-trading activity during the last 30 days by insider.

Name	Title	Trade Date	Shares Sold	Rule 10b5-1	Current Ownership	Decrease In Ownership
Mitchell Gaynor	EVP	Jan 28	250,000	Yes	13,372 shares	94.9%
Kevin Johnson	Director	Jan 28	75,000	Yes	337,691 shares	18.2%
Robyn Denholm	CFO	Jan 28	40,000	Yes	24,309 shares	62.2%

There have been 365,000 shares sold by insiders during the last 30 days. All these shares were sold pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 plan.

SEC Rule 10b5-1 is a regulation enacted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2000. The SEC states that Rule 10b5-1 was enacted in order to resolve an unsettled issue over the definition of insider trading, which is prohibited by SEC Rule 10b-5. After Rule 10b5-1 was enacted, the SEC staff publicly took the position that canceling a planned trade made under the safe harbor does not constitute insider trading, even if the person was aware of the inside information when canceling the trade. This staff interpretation raises the possibility that executives can exploit this safe harbor by entering into 10b5-1 trading plans before they have inside information while retaining the option to later cancel those plans based on inside information.

For example, a CEO of a company could call a broker on January 1 and enter into a plan to sell a particular quantity of shares of his company's stock on March 1, find out terrible news about his company on February 1 that will not become public until April 1, and then go forward with the March 1 sale anyway, saving himself from losing money when the bad news becomes public. Under the terms of Rule 10b5-1(b) this is insider trading because the CEO "was aware" of the inside information when he made the trade. But he can assert an affirmative defense under Rule 10b5-1(c), because he planned the trade before he learned the inside information.

In general, it is a safer way for an insider to sell shares pursuant to a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan than without it.

Insider selling by calendar month

Here is a table of Juniper Networks' insider-trading activity by calendar month.

Month	Insider selling / shares	Insider buying / shares
January 2014	365,000	0
December 2013	0	0
November 2013	325,146	0
October 2013	46,000	0
September 2013	0	0
August 2013	335,000	0
July 2013	0	0
June 2013	0	0
May 2013	20,000	0
April 2013	0	0
March 2013	2,552	0
February 2013	85,000	0
January 2013	35,000	0

There have been 1,213,698 shares sold, and there have been zero shares purchased by insiders since January 2013. The month of January 2014 has seen the most insider selling.

Financials

Juniper Networks reported preliminary full-year 2013 financial results on January 23 with the following highlights:

Revenue	$4.7 billion
Net income	$439.8 million
Cash	$2.8 billion
Debt	$999.3 million

Outlook

Juniper Networks' first-quarter guidance is as follows:

Revenue	$1,120-$1,160 million
Non-GAAP net income	$0.27-$0.30 per share

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(Source: Earnings presentation)

Peer performance

Juniper Networks has been underperforming the Nasdaq Composite index during the last three years.

Competition

Juniper Networks' competitors include Alcatel-Lucent (ALU), and Cisco Systems (CSCO). Here is a table comparing these companies.

Company	JNPR	ALU	CSCO
Market Cap:	14.10B	9.09B	116.93B
Employees:	N/A	72,344	75,049
Qtrly Rev Growth (yoy):	0.12	0.02	0.02
Revenue:	4.67B	18.90B	48.82B
Gross Margin:	0.63	0.31	0.61
EBITDA:	794.90M	1.44B	14.06B
Operating Margin:	0.13	0.04	0.24
Net Income:	439.80M	-3.04B	9.89B
EPS:	0.86	-1.35	1.84
P/E:	32.47	N/A	11.87
PEG (5 yr expected):	1.42	0.26	1.19
P/S:	3.09	0.49	2.37

Juniper Networks has the highest P/S ratio among these three companies.

Here is a table of these competitors' insider-trading activities during the last 12 months.

Company	Insider buying / shares	Insider selling / shares
ALU	N/A	N/A
CSCO	0	4,604,743

Only Juniper Networks has seen intensive insider selling during the last 30 days.

Conclusion

There have been three different insiders selling Juniper Networks, and there have not been any insiders buying Juniper Networks during the last 30 days. All three of these insiders decreased their holdings by more than 10%. Juniper Networks has an insider ownership of 0.40%.

Before going short Juniper Networks, I would like to get a bearish confirmation from the Point and Figure chart. The two main reasons for the proposed short entry are relatively high P/S ratio, and the intensive insider-selling activity.

Source: Juniper Networks: 3 Different Insiders Have Sold Shares This Year

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article. (More...)

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