Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Director Sells $1,070,320.00 in Stock

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) Director Charles Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $133.79, for a total value of $1,070,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 17,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,379,321.36. This represents a 31.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website.

Arista Networks Trading Down 3.3%

Shares of ANET traded down $4.56 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $132.63. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 7,999,749 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,465,994. The company’s 50-day moving average is $132.94 and its 200-day moving average is $131.17. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $59.43 and a 52-week high of $164.94. The firm has a market capitalization of $167.02 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.43, a PEG ratio of 2.25 and a beta of 1.41.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 company had revenue of $2.31 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.26 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $2.40 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 27.5% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. AdvisorNet Financial Inc lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 56.7% during the third quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 72 shares in the last quarter. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the third quarter worth 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. lifted its stake 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 in the last quarter. Finally, Quarry LP purchased a new position in Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter valued at about $33,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their target price on Arista Networks from $155.00 to $175.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on Arista Networks from $150.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, September 12th. 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. Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on Arista Networks from $155.00 to $160.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 16th. Finally, Erste Group Bank lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $164.44.

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.