Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Down 1.9% on Insider Selling

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price traded down 1.9% during trading on Wednesday after an insider sold shares in the company. The company traded as low as $128.64 and last traded at $130.0720. 7,536,388 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 1% from the average session volume of 7,484,290 shares. The stock had previously closed at $132.58.

Specifically, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $133.79, for a total value of $1,070,320.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 17,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,379,321.36. This trade represents a 31.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ANET has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $172.00 target price for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. Wolfe Research boosted their price target on Arista Networks from $160.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 12th. Citigroup raised their price objective on Arista Networks from $136.00 to $176.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, September 12th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $183.00 target price (up previously from $179.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Finally, William Blair restated an “outperform” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, September 12th. Eighteen equities 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, Arista Networks currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $164.44.

Arista Networks Stock Down 1.9%

The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $132.45 and a 200 day moving average price of $131.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $163.80 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.31 and a beta of 1.41.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 4th. The technology company reported $0.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.72 by $0.03. Arista Networks had a net margin of 39.73% and a return on equity of 30.28%. The business had revenue of $2.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.26 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $2.40 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 27.5% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 0.4% in the third quarter. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC now owns 18,509 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,697,000 after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the period. AdvisorNet Financial Inc grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 56.7% in the 3rd quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after buying an additional 72 shares during the last quarter. Crown Wealth Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 2.4% in the third quarter. Crown Wealth Group LLC now owns 3,175 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $463,000 after buying an additional 75 shares during the period. Fragasso Financial Advisors Inc increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.8% in the third quarter. Fragasso Financial Advisors Inc now owns 4,237 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $616,000 after buying an additional 76 shares during the period. Finally, West Family Investments Inc. raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 0.9% during the third quarter. West Family Investments Inc. now owns 8,364 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,219,000 after acquiring an additional 76 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

About Arista Networks

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.