Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Board Declares Stock Repurchase Plan

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) declared that its board has authorized a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, May 7th, RTT News reports. The company plans to buyback $1.20 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the technology company to buy up to 1.4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are generally a sign that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have recently commented on ANET. Oppenheimer reiterated a “market perform” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $297.00 to $315.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, April 11th. JMP Securities reaffirmed a “market outperform” rating and issued a $325.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. KeyCorp lifted their target price on Arista Networks from $232.00 to $287.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, January 18th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $320.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Tuesday, February 13th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and seventeen have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $285.53.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of ANET stock opened at $273.97 on Wednesday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $279.22 and its 200 day moving average is $251.25. Arista Networks has a 1-year low of $133.42 and a 1-year high of $307.74. The company has a market cap of $85.65 billion, a P/E ratio of 41.70, a PEG ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.13.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings results on Monday, February 12th. The technology company reported $2.08 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.70 by $0.38. The business had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.53 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 35.62% and a return on equity of 31.44%. The company’s revenue was up 20.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.25 EPS. On average, analysts anticipate that Arista Networks will post 6.74 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 1,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, May 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $258.77, for a total transaction of $388,155.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 17,681 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,575,312.37. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 1,500 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $258.77, for a total transaction of $388,155.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 17,681 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,575,312.37. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 20,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $284.31, for a total transaction of $5,686,200.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 3,244 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $922,301.64. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 337,054 shares of company stock valued at $96,529,086. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

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.