Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) to Buyback $1.50 billion in Stock

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback program on Tuesday, May 6th, RTT News reports. The company plans to repurchase $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the technology company to repurchase up to 1.3% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

NYSE:ANET opened at $91.10 on Wednesday. Arista Networks has a one year low of $59.43 and a one year high of $133.58. The stock has a market cap of $114.38 billion, a PE ratio of 41.03, a P/E/G ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.38. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $79.02 and a 200 day moving average price of $97.58.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The technology company reported $0.59 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $1.93 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.90 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 29.91% and a net margin of 40.72%. As a group, analysts predict that Arista Networks will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have commented on the company. Citigroup decreased their price target on Arista Networks from $121.00 to $92.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, April 14th. Wells Fargo & Company reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Monday, March 3rd. Rosenblatt Securities raised shares of Arista Networks from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating and lifted their price objective for the stock from $55.00 to $85.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 29th. Evercore ISI lowered their price target 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, UBS Group raised shares of Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $112.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $108.36.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 80,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Thursday, February 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $115.61, for a total transaction of $9,248,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,500,155.36. The trade was a 86.04 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 1,488 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $107.13, for a total value of $159,409.44. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 8,128 shares in the company, valued at approximately $870,752.64. This represents a 15.47 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 412,355 shares of company stock valued at $39,259,279. Corporate insiders own 3.54% of the company’s stock.

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.