Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET Shares Sold by Comerica Bank

Key Points

• Comerica Bank cut its Arista stake by 6.5% in Q4, selling 15,623 shares and leaving 223,419 shares valued at about $29.28 million, while institutional investors collectively own roughly 82.47% of the stock.
• Insiders have been sizable net sellers: recent sales include the CFO and Kenneth Duda, and insiders disposed of 1,502,729 shares worth about $246.43 million over the past three months, leaving insiders with 3.54% ownership.
• Wall Street remains broadly positive and Arista beat estimates: analysts hold a consensus "Buy" rating with a $177.83 average price target, after Arista reported Q4 EPS of $0.82 (vs. $0.75 est.) and revenue of $2.49B (up 28.9% year-over-year); market cap is about $217.2B with a P/E of 62.5.

Comerica Bank cut its holdings in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 6.5% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 223,419 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 15,623 shares during the period. Comerica Bank's holdings in Arista Networks were worth $29,275,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the business. Eagle Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth approximately $450,000. RMR Wealth Builders boosted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 3.3% during the fourth quarter. RMR Wealth Builders now owns 30,531 shares of the technology company's stock worth $4,000,000 after buying an additional 962 shares during the period. Anchyra Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth approximately $3,372,000. Aprio Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 3.7% during the fourth quarter. Aprio Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,213 shares of the technology company's stock worth $421,000 after buying an additional 116 shares during the period. Finally, D.A. Davidson & CO. boosted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 26.8% during the fourth quarter. D.A. Davidson & CO. now owns 24,008 shares of the technology company's stock worth $3,146,000 after buying an additional 5,075 shares during the period. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Transactions at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, CFO Chantelle Yvette Breithaupt sold 8,890 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, April 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.02, for a total value of $1,378,127.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 60,734 shares in the company, valued at $9,414,984.68. This represents a 12.77% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $163.31, for a total value of $5,225,920.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 12,976 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,119,110.56. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 1,502,729 shares of company stock valued at $246,427,959 over the last three months. 3.54% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on ANET. Evercore reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $200.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. UBS Group set a $200.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. TD Cowen started coverage on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday, March 12th. They set a "buy" rating and a $170.00 target price on the stock. Barclays reissued an "overweight" rating and set a $184.00 target price (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Morgan Stanley reissued an "overweight" rating and set a $165.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus price target of $177.83.

Arista Networks Price Performance

ANET opened at $172.50 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $217.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 62.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.11 and a beta of 1.48. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $76.88 and a 1-year high of $179.80. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $140.09 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $137.22.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.38 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.37% and a net margin of 38.99%.The firm's revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.66 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.17 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Arista Networks Company Profile

Arista Networks, Inc is a technology company that designs and sells cloud networking solutions for large-scale data centers and enterprise environments. The company is best known for its high-performance switching and routing platforms, which are used to build scalable, low-latency networks for cloud service providers, internet companies, financial services, telecommunications, and enterprise IT. Arista's offerings emphasize programmability, automation and telemetry to support modern, software-driven network architectures.

Central to Arista's product portfolio is its Extensible Operating System (EOS), a modular network operating system that provides consistent programmability, stateful control and advanced visibility across the company's hardware platforms.

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