New York State Common Retirement Fund Increases Stake in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

New York State Common Retirement Fund boosted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 5.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 1,354,111 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 71,123 shares during the quarter. New York State Common Retirement Fund owned 0.11% of Arista Networks worth $197,308,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the second quarter valued at $1,228,177,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 2,829.0% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 5,721,156 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $833,630,000 after purchasing an additional 5,525,828 shares during the period. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its holdings in 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 purchasing an additional 4,656,021 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP acquired a new stake in Arista Networks in the 2nd quarter valued at about $247,451,000. Finally, Robeco Institutional Asset Management B.V. boosted its stake in shares of 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 buying an additional 1,692,467 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Trading Up 2.5%

Shares of ANET opened at $150.31 on Thursday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $129.93 and its 200-day simple moving average is $134.76. The firm has a market cap of $189.28 billion, a PE ratio of 57.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 1.41. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12-month low of $59.43 and a 12-month high of $164.94.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, November 4th. The technology company reported $0.75 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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%. Arista Networks’s quarterly revenue was up 27.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $2.40 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of analysts recently weighed in on ANET shares. Zacks Research lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “neutral” rating and issued a $140.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Monday, November 24th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $155.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $183.00 price objective (up from $179.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, November 5th. Seventeen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $164.44.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 24,042 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.55, for a total transaction of $2,994,431.10. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,235,162.35. This represents a 70.80% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 30,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.61, for a total value of $3,858,300.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,668,843.36. This trade represents a 69.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 216,464 shares of company stock valued at $27,687,068 over the last quarter. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.