Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Down 4.1% – Time to Sell?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) shares traded down 4.1% during trading on Monday . The stock traded as low as $115.42 and last traded at $115.8620. 7,491,366 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 6% from the average session volume of 8,000,857 shares. The stock had previously closed at $120.77.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ANET has been the topic of several recent research reports. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $165.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $175.00 price objective (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Evercore reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $200.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. KeyCorp restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $178.00 target price (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Eighteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $176.47.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $135.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $136.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $145.59 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.98, a PEG ratio of 2.14 and a beta of 1.46.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.07. The company had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.38 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.37% and a net margin of 38.99%.Arista Networks’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.66 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In other news, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.43, for a total value of $1,123,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 9,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,373,967.12. This represents a 44.98% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Yvonne Wassenaar sold 1,815 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $132.44, for a total transaction of $240,378.60. Following the sale, the director directly owned 12,574 shares in the company, valued at $1,665,300.56. This trade represents a 12.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 199,632 shares of company stock worth $26,936,324 over the last ninety days. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Bare Financial Services Inc boosted its position in Arista Networks by 2,118.2% during the second quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc now owns 244 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $25,000 after purchasing an additional 233 shares during the period. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Sankala Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, AdvisorNet Financial Inc boosted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 56.7% during the 3rd quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 72 shares during the period. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.