Holocene Advisors LP Has $56.44 Million Stock Position in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• Holocene Advisors LP cut its stake in Arista Networks by 84% in Q3, selling 2,031,325 shares and retaining 387,315 shares valued at about $56.44 million.
• Company insiders have been active sellers — including recent sales by Charles H. Giancarlo and Kenneth Duda — with insiders selling 196,237 shares (~$25.87 million) over the past 90 days and now owning 3.54% of the stock.
• Analysts remain broadly positive (18 Buys vs. 5 Holds) with an average target of $176.47, and Arista recently beat estimates with quarterly revenue up 28.9% and EPS of $0.82.

Holocene Advisors LP cut its stake in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 84.0% in the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 387,315 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 2,031,325 shares during the period. Holocene Advisors LP's holdings in Arista Networks were worth $56,436,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Gotham Asset Management LLC boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 157.3% during the third quarter. Gotham Asset Management LLC now owns 159,903 shares of the technology company's stock worth $23,299,000 after buying an additional 97,762 shares during the last quarter. First Commonwealth Financial Corp PA increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 8.3% in the 3rd quarter. First Commonwealth Financial Corp PA now owns 2,165 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $315,000 after acquiring an additional 165 shares during the last quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter valued at about $214,000. Focus Partners Wealth raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 47.9% in the 3rd quarter. Focus Partners Wealth now owns 267,110 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $38,905,000 after acquiring an additional 86,457 shares during the period. Finally, CSM Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $1,726,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In related news, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, March 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.67, for a total value of $1,029,360.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 1,784 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $229,547.28. This represents a 81.77% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 26,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, February 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.35, for a total value of $3,701,100.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 512,400 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $72,940,140. This trade represents a 4.83% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 196,237 shares of company stock valued at $25,865,760. 3.54% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on ANET shares. Morgan Stanley restated an "overweight" rating and set a $165.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Needham & Company LLC increased their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. UBS Group set a $200.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Tuesday, February 24th. Piper Sandler reissued an "overweight" rating and issued a $175.00 price target (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Evercore restated an "outperform" rating and issued a $200.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Arista Networks currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $176.47.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of ANET stock opened at $135.37 on Tuesday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52 week low of $59.43 and a 52 week high of $164.94. The company's 50 day moving average price is $134.82 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $137.34. The company has a market capitalization of $170.09 billion, a P/E ratio of 49.05, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.46.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.07. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.99% and a return on equity of 30.37%. The company had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.38 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.66 earnings per share. The business's quarterly revenue was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

About Arista Networks

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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