Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Up 5.8% After Analyst Upgrade

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) shares traded up 5.8% during trading on Tuesday after Truist Financial upgraded the stock to a strong-buy rating. The company traded as high as $123.46 and last traded at $122.8450. 7,761,559 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 3% from the average session volume of 8,028,128 shares. The stock had previously closed at $116.13.

Other equities research analysts also recently issued research reports about the stock. Needham & Company LLC upped their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and set a $165.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Weiss Ratings reiterated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, March 27th. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $175.00 target price (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $184.00 price target (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have given a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $175.61.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.06, for a total transaction of $54,041.32. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 9,529 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,220,283.74. This trade represents a 4.24% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total value of $4,292,480.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,740,600.64. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold a total of 199,632 shares of company stock worth $26,936,324 over the last quarter. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 0.4% in the 3rd quarter. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC now owns 18,509 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,697,000 after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 0.4% in the fourth quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 16,085 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,133,000 after buying an additional 70 shares during the period. AdvisorNet Financial Inc boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 56.7% in the third quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 72 shares during the last quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc. now owns 6,311 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $827,000 after purchasing an additional 72 shares during the period. Finally, Crown Wealth Group LLC boosted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 2.4% in the 3rd quarter. Crown Wealth Group LLC now owns 3,175 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $463,000 after purchasing an additional 75 shares during the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $158.84 billion, a P/E ratio of 45.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.17 and a beta of 1.48. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $135.07 and a 200-day moving average price of $136.31.

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

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.