Rakuten Investment Management Inc. Purchases New Stake in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Rakuten Investment Management Inc. acquired a new position in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 189,420 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $38,426,000.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ANET. Main Street Group LTD acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the first quarter valued at $26,000. William Mack & Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in Arista Networks during the third quarter worth $27,000. ABS Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in Arista Networks during the second quarter worth $29,000. ABS Direct Equity Fund LLC acquired a new stake in Arista Networks during the second quarter worth $29,000. Finally, NBT Bank N A NY increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 37.2% in the 1st quarter. NBT Bank N A NY now owns 247 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 67 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Key Arista Networks News

Here are the key news stories impacting Arista Networks this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Third-quarter earnings were $1.20 per share versus the $1.08 consensus, while revenue of $3.66 billion exceeded the $3.33 billion estimate and rose 58.5% year over year. The company said revenue growth was its strongest since its IPO, and operating margin widened. Article: Arista Networks Q3 Earnings and Revenues Beat Estimates
• Positive Sentiment: Management’s fourth-quarter outlook was characterized as strong, supporting expectations for continued demand for Arista’s networking products amid AI and data-center expansion. Article: Arista Networks Stock Pops on Q3 Earnings Beat, Strong Q4 Guidance
• Negative Sentiment: Gross margin slipped as product sales made up a larger share of revenue, and coverage flagged a slower pace of growth in the fourth-quarter outlook. These trends could raise questions about the durability of margin gains and rapid growth. Article: Arista Revenue Up 58% as Q4 Outlook Slows

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on ANET. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $250.00 to $205.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, October 19th. Erste Group Bank upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 15th. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $250.00 target price (up from $200.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Sanford C. Bernstein began coverage on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, September 30th. They issued an “outperform” rating and a $250.00 price target for the company. Finally, UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $259.00 price target (up from $187.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $232.95.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ANET opened at $169.58 on Wednesday. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $194.30 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $165.10. Arista Networks, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $114.52 and a fifty-two week high of $217.41. The stock has a market capitalization of $213.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.91 and a beta of 1.61.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 3rd. The technology company reported $1.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.08 by $0.12. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.65% and a net margin of 38.37%. The company had revenue of $3.66 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.33 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.75 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 58.5% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.79 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In related news, CFO Chantelle Breithaupt sold 1,224 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, October 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $215.00, for a total transaction of $263,160.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 68,697 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,769,855. This trade represents a 1.75% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 267,892 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Friday, October 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $171.19, for a total value of $45,860,431.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 180,275,156 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,861,303,955.64. The trade was a 0.15% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 2,487,846 shares of company stock worth $503,417,253 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 2.70% of the company’s stock.

About Arista Networks

Arista Networks, Inc develops and sells cloud networking solutions for data centers, cloud service providers, enterprises and specialized computing environments. The company’s products are designed to support high-performance, scalable and automated networks used for cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data analytics and other demanding applications.

Arista’s portfolio includes data center and campus switches, routing platforms, wireless networking products, network operating software and network management tools.