Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Down 3% After Analyst Downgrade

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) fell 3% during trading on Wednesday after Morgan Stanley lowered their price target on the stock from $171.00 to $159.00. Morgan Stanley currently has an overweight rating on the stock. Arista Networks traded as low as $121.63 and last traded at $122.3280. 8,304,282 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 15% from the average session volume of 9,810,228 shares. The stock had previously closed at $126.13.

A number of other research analysts also recently commented on ANET. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $155.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, December 3rd. Zacks Research lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, October 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $155.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, September 12th. Evercore ISI lifted their price target on Arista Networks from $150.00 to $175.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 12th. Finally, Weiss Ratings cut Arista Networks from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research note on Monday. Seventeen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and six have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $163.56.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $128.09, for a total transaction of $1,024,720.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 25,784 shares in the company, valued at $3,302,672.56. This represents a 23.68% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $117.15, for a total value of $49,437.30. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 8,980 shares in the company, valued at $1,052,007. This represents a 4.49% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 160,464 shares of company stock valued at $21,701,628 over the last three months. 3.39% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the second quarter worth $1,228,177,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 2,829.0% in the third quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 5,721,156 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $833,630,000 after purchasing an additional 5,525,828 shares during the period. AQR Capital Management LLC grew its position in Arista Networks by 153.8% in the 1st quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 7,719,809 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $584,119,000 after buying an additional 4,678,372 shares in the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its position in Arista Networks by 193.3% in the 2nd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 7,065,054 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $721,342,000 after buying an additional 4,656,021 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its stake in Arista Networks by 82.5% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,587,115 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,396,939,000 after buying an additional 4,332,659 shares during the period. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Arista Networks Trading Up 1.9%

The company has a market capitalization of $156.98 billion, a P/E ratio of 47.40, a P/E/G ratio of 2.34 and a beta of 1.41. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $136.73 and its 200 day simple moving average is $127.42.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, November 4th. The technology company reported $0.75 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.72 by $0.03. Arista Networks had a net margin of 39.73% and a return on equity of 30.28%. The business had revenue of $2.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.26 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $2.40 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 27.5% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.