Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Up 5.5% – Here’s What Happened

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) was up 5.5% during mid-day trading on Monday . The company traded as high as $146.41 and last traded at $143.9060. Approximately 10,640,603 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 28% from the average daily volume of 8,323,340 shares. The stock had previously closed at $136.34.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ANET has been the subject of several analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $140.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Monday, November 24th. Piper Sandler upgraded Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and upped their target price for the company from $145.00 to $159.00 in a research note on Monday, January 5th. Erste Group Bank lowered Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on Arista Networks from $171.00 to $159.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, December 17th. Finally, Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $183.00 price objective (up from $179.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, November 5th. Seventeen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Arista Networks presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $164.44.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $128.62 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $134.12. The stock has a market capitalization of $181.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.26, a PEG ratio of 2.29 and a beta of 1.41.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, November 4th. The technology company reported $0.75 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.26 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $2.40 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arista Networks news, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.15, for a total value of $49,437.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 8,980 shares in the company, valued at $1,052,007. This represents a 4.49% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 26,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, January 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.43, for a total transaction of $3,339,180.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 522,400 shares in the company, valued at $67,091,832. This represents a 4.74% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 216,464 shares of company stock worth $27,687,068 over the last three months. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Global Trust Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 33.0% in the 3rd quarter. Global Trust Asset Management LLC now owns 19,273 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,808,000 after purchasing an additional 4,780 shares in the last quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 23.8% during the second quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 40,404 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,134,000 after buying an additional 7,779 shares in the last quarter. Rakuten Investment Management Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the third quarter worth $8,263,000. Penobscot Investment Management Company Inc. raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 7.8% in the second quarter. Penobscot Investment Management Company Inc. now owns 39,073 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,998,000 after acquiring an additional 2,815 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 1.2% during the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 98,993,100 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $10,127,984,000 after acquiring an additional 1,136,167 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.