Juniper Networks ( NYSE: JNPR ) shares rose 3% Tuesday as Piper Sandler analyst James Fish raised his rating on the networking infrastructure company due to what he expects will be a "flush" of orders working their way through the industry's supply chain in 2023.
Fish lifted his take on Juniper ( JNPR ) to neutral from underweight, largely because of an analysis of the state of order backlogs in the networking equipment supply chain. Fish said that while supply chains still have a long way to get back to their standard levels, there are some signs of normalizing, which should see orders that have been put off, or delayed, starting to work their way through to end customers.
"Backlog 'flushes' will start to occur, with the magnitudes depending on various factors," Fish said.
For Juniper ( JNPR ), Fish said that the company is one of the that gives product backlog data, "which in our view creates credibility for CFO [Kenneth] Miller." The company said it had $2.4B in order backlog at the end of the second quarter of this yea, and Fish said Juniper ( JNPR ) historically has between $400M and $500M in backlog at the end of the year.
Fish also bumped up his price target on Juniper's ( JNPR ) stock to $29 a share from $27.
Wall Street analysts currently have a consensus hold rating on Juniper's ( JNPR ) stock, while Seeking Alpha authors have a hold rating on the company's shares. Seeking Alpha's quant system, which historically outperforms the stock market, give Juniper ( JNPR ) a hold rating on its shares .
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Juniper Networks gets a slight lift on potential for a 'flush' in backlogged orders