Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Up 3.2% – Time to Buy?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price traded up 3.2% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $139.48 and last traded at $139.16. 8,290,697 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 4% from the average session volume of 8,672,354 shares. The stock had previously closed at $134.83.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ANET has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Morgan Stanley reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $165.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $188.00 price target (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $200.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $175.00 price objective (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Monday, December 29th. Seventeen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $176.88.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $174.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.42, a P/E/G ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.46. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $134.26 and a 200 day moving average price of $137.17.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.38 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.66 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Arista Networks news, Director Yvonne Wassenaar sold 1,815 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $132.44, for a total transaction of $240,378.60. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 12,574 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,665,300.56. The trade was a 12.61% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.43, for a total value of $1,123,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 9,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,373,967.12. This trade represents a 44.98% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders have sold 196,237 shares of company stock worth $25,865,760. Insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ANET. AdvisorNet Financial Inc boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 56.7% during the 3rd 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 last quarter. Knuff & Co LLC bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the third quarter valued at about $29,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Sankala Group LLC bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth about $27,000. Finally, Prosperity Bancshares Inc bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

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.