Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Board of Directors Authorizes Stock Buyback Program

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on ANET shares. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $272.00 to $311.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. Oppenheimer restated a “market perform” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Tuesday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $313.00 to $356.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday, March 22nd. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $275.00 to $285.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. Finally, Piper Sandler raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $268.00 to $302.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and seventeen have issued a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $292.50.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of ANET opened at $291.67 on Thursday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $279.22 and its 200 day moving average is $251.25. Arista Networks has a fifty-two week low of $133.42 and a fifty-two week high of $307.74. The stock has a market capitalization of $91.19 billion, a PE ratio of 44.39, a P/E/G ratio of 2.33 and a beta of 1.13.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its quarterly earnings data 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. Arista Networks had a net margin of 35.62% and a return on equity of 31.44%. The business had revenue of $1.54 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.53 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $1.25 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was up 20.8% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts forecast that Arista Networks will post 6.74 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In other news, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $284.31, for a total value of $5,686,200.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 3,244 shares in the company, valued at $922,301.64. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. In related news, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 20,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $284.31, for a total value of $5,686,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 3,244 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $922,301.64. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Marc Taxay sold 11,650 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $286.28, for a total transaction of $3,335,162.00. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 337,054 shares of company stock worth $96,529,086 over the last quarter. Insiders own 3.54% of the company’s stock.

About Arista Networks

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.