Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Up 4.4% – Should You Buy?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price rose 4.4% on Thursday . The company traded as high as $133.34 and last traded at $130.56. Approximately 8,556,775 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 5% from the average daily volume of 8,128,700 shares. The stock had previously closed at $125.09.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ANET has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Piper Sandler upgraded Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $145.00 to $159.00 in a research note on Monday, January 5th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Monday, December 29th. Morgan Stanley reduced their target price on Arista Networks from $171.00 to $159.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, December 17th. Erste Group Bank lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Finally, BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “hold” rating to an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, September 25th. Eighteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $164.44.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $164.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 49.64, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.19 and a beta of 1.41. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $128.96 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $132.47.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.72 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $2.31 billion for 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 company’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.40 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 24,042 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,235,162.35. This trade represents a 70.80% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.15, for a total transaction of $49,437.30. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 8,980 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,052,007. The trade was a 4.49% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 216,464 shares of company stock worth $28,488,988 over the last 90 days. Insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Arista Networks by 1.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 100,000,830 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $14,571,121,000 after acquiring an additional 1,007,730 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 0.5% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 46,342,551 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $6,752,573,000 after acquiring an additional 245,976 shares during the period. Cresset Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.0% in the 2nd quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC now owns 26,374,373 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,698,362,000 after acquiring an additional 263,272 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Arista Networks by 0.5% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 25,576,483 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,606,694,000 after acquiring an additional 128,977 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in Arista Networks during the second quarter valued at about $1,228,177,000. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.