Arista Networks’ (ANET) “Buy” Rating Reaffirmed at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC restated their buy rating on shares of Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) in a report released on Wednesday, Benzinga reports. They currently have a $320.00 price objective on the technology company’s stock.

ANET has been the topic of several other research reports. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a sell rating and set a $210.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, April 12th. KeyCorp boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $232.00 to $287.00 and gave the company an overweight rating in a research report on Thursday, January 18th. JMP Securities restated a market outperform rating and set a $325.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. Jefferies Financial Group upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a hold rating to a buy rating and upped their price target for the company from $240.00 to $320.00 in a report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $254.00 to $268.00 and gave the stock a neutral rating in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and seventeen have given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks has an average rating of Moderate Buy and a consensus target price of $292.50.

Arista Networks Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of ANET opened at $290.93 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $90.95 billion, a P/E ratio of 44.39, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.13. Arista Networks has a 1 year low of $133.42 and a 1 year high of $307.74. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $279.22 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $251.25.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, February 12th. The technology company reported $2.08 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $1.70 by $0.38. Arista Networks had a net margin of 35.62% and a return on equity of 31.44%. The business had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.53 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $1.25 EPS. Arista Networks’s quarterly revenue was up 20.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Arista Networks will post 6.74 EPS for the current year.

Arista Networks announced that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, May 7th that authorizes the company to repurchase $1.20 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the technology company to reacquire up to 1.4% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 22,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, March 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $303.00, for a total value of $6,666,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 1,665,300 shares in the company, valued at $504,585,900. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. In related news, Director Yvonne Wassenaar sold 224 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $255.29, for a total value of $57,184.96. Following the sale, the director now owns 2,827 shares in the company, valued at approximately $721,704.83. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 22,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Friday, March 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $303.00, for a total transaction of $6,666,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,665,300 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $504,585,900. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 337,054 shares of company stock valued at $96,529,086. 3.54% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 5.7% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 29,494,876 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $6,946,338,000 after acquiring an additional 1,596,040 shares during the period. FMR LLC grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 32.2% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 10,318,633 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,897,906,000 after purchasing an additional 2,515,864 shares during the last quarter. Capital World Investors increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 0.5% during the fourth quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 10,136,348 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,387,211,000 after purchasing an additional 55,312 shares during the period. WCM Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 0.8% during the 1st quarter. WCM Investment Management LLC now owns 3,049,416 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $884,270,000 after purchasing an additional 25,196 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $586,051,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

About Arista Networks

Arista Networks, Inc engages in the development, marketing, and sale of data-driven, client to cloud networking solutions for data center, campus, and routing environments in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific. Its cloud networking solutions consist of Extensible Operating System (EOS), a publish-subscribe state-sharing networking operating system offered in combination with a set of network applications.