Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Down 1.5% Following Insider Selling

Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) traded down 1.5% during trading on Friday following insider selling activity. The company traded as low as $134.86 and last traded at $136.2990. 8,048,564 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 1% from the average session volume of 8,169,458 shares. The stock had previously closed at $138.41.

Specifically, insider Kenneth Duda sold 26,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.43, for a total value of $3,339,180.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 522,400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $67,091,832. This represents a 4.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 30,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.43, for a total value of $3,852,900.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,666,507.68. The trade was a 69.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $140.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Monday, November 24th. Zacks Research lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $183.00 target price (up from $179.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, November 5th. BNP Paribas Exane upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “hold” rating to an “outperform” rating in a report on Thursday, September 25th. Finally, Erste Group Bank lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Seventeen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned 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 Stock Performance

The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $128.52 and its 200-day simple moving average is $133.47. The company has a market cap of $171.64 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 51.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.14 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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.72 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $2.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.26 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 39.73% and a return on equity of 30.28%. Arista Networks’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $2.40 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. 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. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the third quarter valued at about $29,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Richardson Financial Services Inc. grew its holdings in Arista Networks by 141.3% in the 3rd quarter. Richardson Financial Services Inc. now owns 222 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 130 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quarry LP acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the third quarter worth approximately $33,000. 82.47% of the stock is 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.