Jefferies Financial Group Inc. Sells 8,077 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• Jefferies reduced its stake in Arista by 42.3% in Q3, selling 8,077 shares and now holds 11,030 shares valued at $1.607 million.
• Insider selling was substantial: directors Kelly Bodnar Battles and Yvonne Wassenaar sold shares (422 and 1,815 respectively), and insiders disposed of a total of 196,237 shares worth $25.87 million in the last quarter, leaving insiders with 3.39% ownership.
• Arista beat estimates for the quarter with EPS $0.82 vs. $0.75 and revenue $2.49B vs. $2.38B (revenue up 28.9% YoY), and analysts remain largely positive with a consensus price target of $176.88 and mostly Buy/Overweight ratings.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. lowered its stake in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 42.3% in the third quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 11,030 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 8,077 shares during the period. Jefferies Financial Group Inc.'s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $1,607,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in ANET. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.2% in the 3rd quarter. Pinnacle Associates Ltd. now owns 13,028 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $1,898,000 after acquiring an additional 151 shares in the last quarter. Rathbones Group PLC grew its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 1.1% during the 3rd quarter. Rathbones Group PLC now owns 7,297 shares of the technology company's stock worth $1,063,000 after purchasing an additional 82 shares in the last quarter. Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $668,000. Parallel Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Arista Networks by 4.0% during the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 62,029 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $9,038,000 after purchasing an additional 2,371 shares during the period. Finally, Black Swift Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the third quarter valued at approximately $7,785,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 23rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $128.06, for a total transaction of $54,041.32. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 9,529 shares in the company, valued at $1,220,283.74. This trade represents a 4.24% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Yvonne Wassenaar sold 1,815 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $132.44, for a total transaction of $240,378.60. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 12,574 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,665,300.56. This represents a 12.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 196,237 shares of company stock worth $25,865,760 in the last quarter. 3.39% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of ANET stock opened at $138.33 on Thursday. The stock's fifty day simple moving average is $134.80 and its 200 day simple moving average is $137.32. The firm has a market cap of $173.81 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.12, a P/E/G ratio of 2.48 and a beta of 1.46. Arista Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $59.43 and a one year high of $164.94.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.38 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.37% and a net margin of 38.99%.The business'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 company posted $0.66 earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ANET has been the subject of several research reports. Barclays reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and issued a $184.00 target price (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. KeyCorp reissued an "overweight" rating and issued a $178.00 price target (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $140.00 to $165.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 10th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Evercore reiterated an "outperform" rating and set a $200.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Seventeen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $176.88.

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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