Wellington Management Group LLP Reduces Stake in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Wellington Management Group LLP reduced its stake in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 8.6% in the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 10,061,343 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 952,168 shares during the quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP owned approximately 0.80% of Arista Networks worth $779,553,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Brighton Jones LLC lifted 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 during the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $202,000. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 433.7% in the 4th quarter. Bank Pictet & Cie Europe AG now owns 10,856 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,200,000 after purchasing an additional 8,822 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 289.1% in the 4th quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,241,084 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $247,723,000 after purchasing an additional 1,665,099 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Natixis lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 217.7% in the 4th quarter. Natixis now owns 82,994 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $9,173,000 after purchasing an additional 56,873 shares during the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 1,785,165 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $136.22, for a total value of $243,175,176.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 5,698,074 shares in the company, valued at approximately $776,191,640.28. This represents a 23.86% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. In the last quarter, insiders sold 5,767,742 shares of company stock valued at $714,048,068. Corporate insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have recently commented on the company. Wolfe Research assumed coverage on Arista Networks in a research note on Tuesday, July 8th. They issued an “outperform” rating on the stock. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on Arista Networks from $106.00 to $125.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Piper Sandler upped their price target on Arista Networks from $89.00 to $143.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Citigroup increased their target price on Arista Networks from $123.00 to $136.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 6th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane lowered Arista Networks from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $106.00 target price on the stock. in a research note on Wednesday, June 11th. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and fourteen have given a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $138.07.

Arista Networks Price Performance

ANET stock opened at $137.99 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $173.43 billion, a P/E ratio of 54.27, a P/E/G ratio of 3.23 and a beta of 1.37. The business’s 50-day moving average is $110.80 and its two-hundred day moving average is $96.15. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 1 year low of $59.43 and a 1 year high of $141.99.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 5th. The technology company reported $0.73 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.65 by $0.08. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 31.05% and a net margin of 40.90%. The business had revenue of $2.20 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.11 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.53 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 30.4% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 2.2 EPS for the current year.

Arista Networks declared that its board has approved a share repurchase plan on Tuesday, May 6th that allows the company to repurchase $1.50 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the technology company to reacquire up to 1.3% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are often an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

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.