Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Up 2.7% – Time to Buy?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) shot up 2.7% during trading on Monday . The stock traded as high as $141.41 and last traded at $137.1890. 9,613,246 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 34% from the average session volume of 7,154,219 shares. The stock had previously closed at $133.60.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ANET has been the topic of several analyst reports. William Blair reissued an “outperform” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, September 12th. BNP Paribas Exane upgraded Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $172.00 target price on the stock in a report on Thursday, September 25th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $155.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Needham & Company LLC boosted their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 16th. Finally, Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $183.00 target price (up previously from $179.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, November 5th. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $164.44.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $133.33 and its 200 day moving average price is $130.84. The firm has a market cap of $172.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 52.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.41.

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

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the director directly owned 8,980 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,052,007. The trade was a 4.49% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, November 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $157.12, for a total value of $1,256,960.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 33,784 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,308,142.08. This trade represents a 19.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 208,464 shares of company stock worth $27,418,668. Insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. SteelPeak Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Arista Networks by 23.8% in the second quarter. SteelPeak Wealth LLC now owns 40,404 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,134,000 after purchasing an additional 7,779 shares during the last quarter. Penobscot Investment Management Company Inc. raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 7.8% during the 2nd quarter. Penobscot Investment Management Company Inc. now owns 39,073 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,998,000 after buying an additional 2,815 shares in the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 98,993,100 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $10,127,984,000 after purchasing an additional 1,136,167 shares in the last quarter. Holocene Advisors LP bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the second quarter valued at about $247,451,000. Finally, Soltis Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 99.3% in the second quarter. Soltis Investment Advisors LLC now owns 40,428 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,136,000 after buying an additional 20,141 shares during the period. 82.47% of the stock is owned by 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.