Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Rating Lowered to "Hold" at BNP Paribas

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) was downgraded by research analysts at BNP Paribas from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report issued on Wednesday,Zacks.com reports.

ANET has been the subject of several other research reports. Erste Group Bank lowered Arista Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on Arista Networks from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 7th. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on Arista Networks from $73.00 to $100.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 1st. Evercore ISI lowered their price objective on Arista Networks from $130.00 to $100.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 15th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane downgraded Arista Networks from an "outperform" rating to a "neutral" rating and set a $106.00 price target for the company. in a report on Wednesday. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $107.38.

Arista Networks Trading Down 3.6%

Shares of Arista Networks stock traded down $3.49 on Wednesday, reaching $92.28. The stock had a trading volume of 6,205,708 shares, compared to its average volume of 9,043,529. Arista Networks has a 1 year low of $59.43 and a 1 year high of $133.58. The company has a market cap of $115.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.57, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.37. The business's 50 day moving average is $85.82 and its two-hundred day moving average is $96.36.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 6th. The technology company reported $0.65 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.59 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a net margin of 40.72% and a return on equity of 29.91%. The company had revenue of $2 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $1.97 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.50 earnings per share. Arista Networks's revenue for the quarter was up 27.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Arista Networks will post 2.2 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Arista Networks announced that its board has initiated a share buyback plan on Tuesday, May 6th that permits the company to buyback $1.50 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the technology company to repurchase up to 1.3% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are often an indication that the company's leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 80,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $90.07, for a total transaction of $7,205,600.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,168,748.32. The trade was a 86.04% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 1,492 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $68.49, for a total value of $102,187.08. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 7,480 shares in the company, valued at approximately $512,305.20. The trade was a 16.63% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 105,690 shares of company stock worth $9,360,205 in the last three months. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in ANET. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 304.2% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 96,084,951 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $10,620,270,000 after buying an additional 72,311,318 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 330.9% in 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 in the last quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 277.5% in the 4th quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC now owns 27,288,583 shares of the technology company's stock worth $3,016,207,000 after purchasing an additional 20,059,303 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted 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 worth $2,665,829,000 after purchasing an additional 18,293,874 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Alliancebernstein L.P. lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 218.5% in the 4th 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. 82.47% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.