Citigroup Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) had its target price lifted by Citigroup from $97.00 to $112.00 in a research report report published on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has a buy rating on the technology company’s stock.

ANET has been the topic of several other research reports. Evercore ISI lowered their price target on Arista Networks from $130.00 to $100.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Tuesday, April 15th. Erste Group Bank downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, March 17th. Barclays reduced their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $126.00 to $119.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, May 8th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on Arista Networks from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 7th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Monday, March 3rd. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $107.14.

Arista Networks Trading Down 2.3%

NYSE:ANET opened at $95.97 on Tuesday. Arista Networks has a twelve month low of $59.43 and a twelve month high of $133.58. The company has a 50-day moving average of $79.95 and a 200-day moving average of $97.24. The firm has a market cap of $120.53 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 43.23, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.38.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 6th. The technology company reported $0.65 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.59 by $0.06. The business had revenue of $2 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.97 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 40.72% and a return on equity of 29.91%. The firm’s revenue was up 27.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.50 earnings per share. On average, research analysts forecast that Arista Networks will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Arista Networks declared that its board has initiated a share repurchase program on Tuesday, May 6th that permits the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the technology company to repurchase up to 1.3% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 138,351 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, February 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $93.88, for a total transaction of $12,988,391.88. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 92,641 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $8,697,137.08. This represents a 59.89% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 80,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.07, for a total value of $7,205,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,976 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,168,748.32. This represents a 86.04% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 410,867 shares of company stock valued at $37,056,669. Insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position 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 acquiring an additional 72,311,318 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 330.9% in the fourth quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,648,129 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $6,371,848,000 after purchasing an additional 44,269,572 shares during the period. Cresset Asset Management LLC raised its stake in Arista Networks by 277.5% in 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 in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in Arista Networks by 311.6% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 24,165,355 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,665,829,000 after buying an additional 18,293,874 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. increased its position in shares of Arista Networks by 218.5% during the fourth quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 21,070,016 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,328,869,000 after purchasing an additional 14,454,822 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Company Profile

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.