Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co Boosts Stake in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co lifted its holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 8.9% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 198,550 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 16,250 shares during the period. Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Co’s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $26,016,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the third quarter worth about $29,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Richardson Financial Services Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 141.3% in the third quarter. Richardson Financial Services Inc. now owns 222 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $32,000 after buying an additional 130 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the third quarter worth about $33,000. Finally, Ameliora Wealth Management Ltd. purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth about $30,000. 82.47% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have commented on ANET. Susquehanna raised shares of Arista Networks to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 1st. Truist Financial began coverage on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Tuesday, March 31st. They set a “buy” rating and a $161.00 target price on the stock. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Friday. Zacks Research raised shares of Arista Networks from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, April 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $180.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and three have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $178.67.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of ANET stock opened at $172.76 on Monday. The stock has a market capitalization of $217.53 billion, a P/E ratio of 62.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $141.84 and a 200 day moving average price of $137.69. Arista Networks, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $82.80 and a fifty-two week high of $179.80.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.07. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.99% and a return on equity of 30.37%. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.38 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.66 earnings per share. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.17 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In other news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total value of $4,292,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,740,600.64. This represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 5,209,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. This trade represents a 7.59% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 1,494,729 shares of company stock valued at $245,304,519. Company insiders own 3.54% of the company’s stock.

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.