Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Up 3.2% – What’s Next?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price rose 3.2% on Thursday . The company traded as high as $139.48 and last traded at $139.16. Approximately 8,290,697 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 4% from the average daily volume of 8,672,354 shares. The stock had previously closed at $134.83.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms recently commented on ANET. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $188.00 target price (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $184.00 price target (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $175.00 price objective (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Erste Group Bank cut Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Seventeen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $176.88.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The firm has a market cap of $174.86 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.46. The company’s 50 day moving average is $134.26 and its 200 day moving average is $137.17.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.07. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.99% and a return on equity of 30.37%. The company had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.38 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.66 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In related news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $142.44, for a total value of $4,558,080.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,848,301.44. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.43, for a total transaction of $1,123,440.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 9,784 shares in the company, valued at $1,373,967.12. The trade was a 44.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders sold 196,237 shares of company stock worth $25,865,760. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of ANET. AdvisorNet Financial Inc raised its position in Arista Networks by 56.7% during the 3rd quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 72 shares during the last quarter. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the third quarter valued at about $29,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Sankala Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth approximately $27,000. Finally, Prosperity Bancshares Inc acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth approximately $28,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Company Profile

Arista Networks, Inc is a technology company that designs and sells cloud networking solutions for large-scale data centers and enterprise environments. The company is best known for its high-performance switching and routing platforms, which are used to build scalable, low-latency networks for cloud service providers, internet companies, financial services, telecommunications, and enterprise IT. Arista’s offerings emphasize programmability, automation and telemetry to support modern, software-driven network architectures.

Central to Arista’s product portfolio is its Extensible Operating System (EOS), a modular network operating system that provides consistent programmability, stateful control and advanced visibility across the company’s hardware platforms.