Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Down 3.7% – Time to Sell?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price dropped 3.7% during trading on Tuesday . The company traded as low as $122.37 and last traded at $124.55. Approximately 6,110,262 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 30% from the average daily volume of 8,724,743 shares. The stock had previously closed at $129.30.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have issued reports on ANET. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. Erste Group Bank lowered Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $140.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 10th. UBS Group set a $200.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $184.00 price objective (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Seventeen equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $176.88.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $134.32 and a 200 day moving average price of $137.28. The firm has a market capitalization of $156.50 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.13, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.46.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.07. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.37% and a net margin of 38.99%.The business had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.38 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.66 EPS. The company’s revenue was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $140.43, for a total transaction of $1,123,440.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 9,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,373,967.12. The trade was a 44.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $142.44, for a total value of $4,558,080.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 12,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,848,301.44. This represents a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 188,237 shares of company stock valued at $24,836,400. Insiders own 3.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. AdvisorNet Financial Inc increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 56.7% in the third 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 last quarter. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new position in Arista Networks during the 3rd quarter worth $29,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth about $26,000. Sankala Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at about $27,000. Finally, Prosperity Bancshares Inc acquired a new position in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth about $28,000. 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.