Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Down 3.3% After Insider Selling

Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) fell 3.3% during mid-day trading on Friday after an insider sold shares in the company. The company traded as low as $132.15 and last traded at $132.7170. 8,290,755 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 7% from the average session volume of 8,937,319 shares. The stock had previously closed at $137.23.

Specifically, insider Kenneth Duda sold 26,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.35, for a total value of $3,701,100.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 512,400 shares in the company, valued at approximately $72,940,140. The trade was a 4.83% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $142.44, for a total transaction of $4,558,080.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,848,301.44. The trade was a 71.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently commented on ANET. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $140.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 10th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $184.00 price target (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $175.00 price objective (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $165.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Seventeen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $175.44.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $166.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 48.09, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.35 and a beta of 1.42. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $133.75 and its 200-day simple moving average is $137.42.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings data 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. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.99% and a return on equity of 30.37%. The company had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.38 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.66 EPS. Arista Networks’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC boosted its position in Arista Networks by 0.4% during the third quarter. Walkner Condon Financial Advisors LLC now owns 18,509 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,697,000 after purchasing an additional 70 shares during the period. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. lifted its position in Arista Networks by 0.4% during the fourth quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 16,085 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,133,000 after acquiring an additional 70 shares during the last quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc boosted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 56.7% during the third quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 72 shares during the period. United Asset Strategies Inc. grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 1.2% in the fourth 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 last quarter. Finally, Crown Wealth Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 2.4% during the third 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 period. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Arista Networks

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.