Vanguard Group Inc. Acquires 72,311,318 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)

Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 304.2% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 96,084,951 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 72,311,318 shares during the quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. owned 0.08% of Arista Networks worth $10,620,270,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of ANET. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter worth about $1,417,000. First Horizon Advisors Inc. increased its stake in Arista Networks by 20.7% during the 3rd quarter. First Horizon Advisors Inc. now owns 963 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $370,000 after purchasing an additional 165 shares in the last quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI increased its stake in Arista Networks by 67.3% during the 3rd quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 2,920 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,121,000 after purchasing an additional 1,175 shares in the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC increased its stake in Arista Networks by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. LPL Financial LLC now owns 250,416 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $96,114,000 after purchasing an additional 4,952 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Banco Santander S.A. bought a new stake in Arista Networks during the 3rd quarter valued at about $753,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ANET has been the subject of a number of analyst reports. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and set a $145.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, February 19th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Monday, March 3rd. UBS Group upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $112.00 to $115.00 in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $102.50 to $118.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, StockNews.com lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and twelve have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $114.00.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:ANET opened at $83.26 on Friday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $60.08 and a 1-year high of $133.58. The company has a market capitalization of $104.99 billion, a P/E ratio of 37.50, a P/E/G ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.08. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $102.53 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $101.74.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, February 18th. The technology company reported $0.59 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.57 by $0.02. Arista Networks had a net margin of 40.72% and a return on equity of 29.91%. The business had revenue of $1.93 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.90 billion. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 138,351 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 24th. The shares were sold at an average price of $93.88, for a total transaction of $12,988,391.88. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 92,641 shares in the company, valued at $8,697,137.08. This trade represents a 59.89 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, January 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $111.51, for a total transaction of $892,080.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 163,784 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,263,553.84. The trade was a 4.66 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 491,001 shares of company stock worth $49,112,111 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.