UBS Group Upgrades Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) to “Buy”

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) was upgraded by research analysts at UBS Group from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Wednesday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has a $115.00 price target on the technology company’s stock, up from their previous price target of $112.00. UBS Group’s price target points to a potential upside of 36.37% from the company’s current price.

Several other brokerages have also commented on ANET. Barclays raised their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $125.00 to $126.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group lifted their target price on Arista Networks from $135.00 to $145.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $145.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, February 19th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Arista Networks from $102.50 to $118.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and issued a $108.00 price objective (up previously from $106.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, February 19th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and thirteen have given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $114.00.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of ANET opened at $84.33 on Wednesday. Arista Networks has a 12 month low of $60.08 and a 12 month high of $133.57. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $109.52 and a 200 day moving average price of $102.02. The company has a market cap of $106.35 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.99, a PEG ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.09.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The technology company reported $0.59 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.02. Arista Networks had a net margin of 40.72% and a return on equity of 29.91%. The business had revenue of $1.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.90 billion. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Arista Networks will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arista Networks news, insider John F. Mccool sold 288 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $108.70, for a total transaction of $31,305.60. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 80,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Monday, January 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $118.47, for a total value of $9,477,600.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,537,266.72. This represents a 86.04 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 411,289 shares of company stock worth $42,355,417. Corporate insiders own 3.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 304.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 96,084,951 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $10,620,270,000 after purchasing an additional 72,311,318 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 330.9% during the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,648,129 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $6,371,848,000 after purchasing an additional 44,269,572 shares during the last quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 277.5% during the fourth quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC now owns 27,288,583 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,016,207,000 after buying an additional 20,059,303 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 311.6% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 24,165,355 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,665,829,000 after purchasing an additional 18,293,874 shares during the period. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 218.5% in the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 21,070,016 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,328,869,000 after buying an additional 14,454,822 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.