Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund Raises Position in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund increased its stake in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 32.3% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 117,788 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 28,742 shares during the quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund’s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $17,163,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the second quarter valued at $1,228,177,000. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 193.3% during the 2nd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 7,065,054 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $721,342,000 after acquiring an additional 4,656,021 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP purchased a new stake in Arista Networks in the 2nd quarter worth about $247,451,000. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. raised its stake in Arista Networks by 123.0% in the 2nd quarter. Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. now owns 3,068,064 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $313,894,000 after acquiring an additional 1,692,467 shares during the period. Finally, Voya Investment Management LLC raised its stake in Arista Networks by 102.1% in the 1st quarter. Voya Investment Management LLC now owns 3,086,504 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $239,142,000 after acquiring an additional 1,559,453 shares during the period. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Arista Networks Trading Down 4.9%

Shares of ANET opened at $123.77 on Friday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $59.43 and a 12 month high of $164.94. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $131.12 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $131.44. The company has a market cap of $155.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 47.06, a P/E/G ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.41.

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

Insider Transactions at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 30,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $123.16, for a total transaction of $3,694,800.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,598,124.16. This trade represents a 69.81% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.79, for a total transaction of $1,070,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 17,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,379,321.36. The trade was a 31.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold 216,464 shares of company stock worth $28,488,988 in the last 90 days. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on ANET shares. Morgan Stanley cut their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $171.00 to $159.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 17th. Evercore ISI upped their target price on Arista Networks from $150.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 12th. BNP Paribas Exane raised Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $172.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $155.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Zacks Research lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Monday, October 6th. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $164.44.

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.