Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Up 5.4% – Here’s What Happened

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price rose 5.4% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $132.52 and last traded at $131.29. Approximately 12,458,296 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 27% from the average daily volume of 9,803,333 shares. The stock had previously closed at $124.62.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Monday. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $140.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Monday, November 24th. Wolfe Research lifted their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $160.00 to $185.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 12th. Zacks Research cut Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, October 6th. Finally, BNP Paribas raised Arista Networks from a “hold” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research report on Thursday, September 25th. Seventeen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $163.56.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The firm has a 50-day moving average of $136.73 and a 200-day moving average of $127.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $165.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 49.92, a PEG ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 1.41.

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

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 26,000 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 $3,343,860.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 542,400 shares in the company, valued at $69,758,064. The trade was a 4.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $117.15, for a total transaction of $49,437.30. Following the transaction, the director owned 8,980 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,052,007. This trade represents a 4.49% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 160,464 shares of company stock worth $21,701,628. 3.39% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of ANET. Bare Financial Services Inc boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 2,118.2% in the second quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc now owns 244 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 233 shares during the period. AdvisorNet Financial Inc grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 56.7% during the third quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 72 shares in the last quarter. Knuff & Co LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the third quarter worth about $29,000. Richardson Financial Services Inc. lifted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 141.3% in the third quarter. Richardson Financial Services Inc. now owns 222 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 130 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Saudi Central Bank bought a new position in Arista Networks during the first quarter valued at approximately $33,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.