Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Up 1.7% – Should You Buy?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price shot up 1.7% on Monday . The stock traded as high as $135.30 and last traded at $134.1070. 6,064,049 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 37% from the average session volume of 9,682,575 shares. The stock had previously closed at $131.84.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ANET has been the topic of several research reports. Citigroup boosted their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $136.00 to $176.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 12th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $155.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, December 3rd. Piper Sandler reissued a “neutral” rating and set a $145.00 price target (up from $143.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, November 5th. BNP Paribas Exane raised Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $172.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, September 25th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC upped their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 16th. Seventeen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $163.56.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $135.01 and its 200-day simple moving average is $129.44. The stock has a market cap of $168.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 50.99, a P/E/G ratio of 2.52 and a beta of 1.41.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, November 4th. The technology company reported $0.75 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 the consensus estimate of $2.26 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $2.40 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 27.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 24,042 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.55, for a total value of $2,994,431.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,235,162.35. This represents a 70.80% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 30,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $142.75, for a total transaction of $4,282,500.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,852,324. This trade represents a 69.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 216,464 shares of company stock valued at $28,598,588. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Mirabella Financial Services LLP grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 136.8% in the 3rd quarter. Mirabella Financial Services LLP now owns 23,688 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,445,000 after buying an additional 13,683 shares during the last quarter. IFP Advisors Inc grew its holdings in Arista Networks by 8.3% during the 3rd quarter. IFP Advisors Inc now owns 7,659 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,116,000 after acquiring an additional 584 shares during the period. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 8.8% in the 3rd quarter. Swiss Life Asset Management Ltd now owns 421,851 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $61,468,000 after purchasing an additional 34,258 shares during the period. Tevis Investment Management raised its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 10.9% in the third quarter. Tevis Investment Management now owns 4,697 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $684,000 after purchasing an additional 461 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 139.3% during the third quarter. Cantor Fitzgerald L. P. now owns 21,250 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,096,000 after purchasing an additional 12,370 shares during the last quarter. 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.