Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET Shares Sold by First Trust Advisors LP

First Trust Advisors LP trimmed its stake in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 26.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 3,878,141 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 1,408,588 shares during the quarter. First Trust Advisors LP owned approximately 0.31% of Arista Networks worth $565,084,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in ANET. Brighton Jones LLC raised its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 321.7% in the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 7,806 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $863,000 after purchasing an additional 5,955 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth approximately $202,000. Bison Wealth LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $251,000. Sivia Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in Arista Networks by 48.4% during the second quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 10,723 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,097,000 after purchasing an additional 3,496 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Crestwood Advisors Group LLC grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 31.3% during the 2nd quarter. Crestwood Advisors Group LLC now owns 6,930 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $709,000 after buying an additional 1,652 shares during the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In related news, Director Yvonne Wassenaar sold 1,815 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, February 25th. The stock was 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. The trade was a 12.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, February 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $142.44, for a total transaction of $4,558,080.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,848,301.44. The trade was a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 196,237 shares of company stock valued at $25,865,760 over the last 90 days. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ANET opened at $133.15 on Friday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $59.43 and a 12 month high of $164.94. The stock has a market cap of $167.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.24, a PEG ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 1.46. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $134.45 and its 200 day moving average price is $137.15.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.07. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.37% and a net margin of 38.99%.The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.38 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.66 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 28.9% on a year-over-year basis. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ANET has been the subject of a number of research reports. Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Monday, December 29th. UBS Group set a $200.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Tuesday, February 24th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Barclays reaffirmed 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, The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $188.00 price target (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Seventeen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $176.88.

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.