Calamos Advisors LLC Grows Stock Position in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)

Calamos Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 300.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 170,252 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 127,689 shares during the period. Calamos Advisors LLC’s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $18,818,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Arista Networks by 3.8% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 11,237,635 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,313,229,000 after acquiring an additional 411,109 shares during the period. Swedbank AB increased its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 293.2% during the 4th quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 6,750,793 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $746,165,000 after purchasing an additional 5,034,022 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 4.2% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 5,871,481 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,246,705,000 after purchasing an additional 236,151 shares during the period. Jennison Associates LLC boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 307.7% during the fourth quarter. Jennison Associates LLC now owns 4,632,730 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $512,056,000 after buying an additional 3,496,497 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP grew its position in Arista Networks by 22.7% during the third quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 2,660,695 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,021,228,000 after buying an additional 492,615 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $102.50 to $118.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Piper Sandler reiterated a “neutral” rating and set a $105.25 price target (up previously from $86.25) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, November 8th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $66.25 to $80.00 and gave the company a “sell” rating in a research report on Friday, November 8th. StockNews.com downgraded Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, Barclays dropped their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $495.00 to $125.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, December 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $105.83.

Insider Activity

In other Arista Networks news, SVP Kenneth Duda sold 80,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.29, for a total transaction of $8,663,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 12,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,405,171.04. The trade was a 86.04 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 71,036 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $100.06, for a total transaction of $7,107,506.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 70,724 shares in the company, valued at $7,076,289.82. This represents a 50.11 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 255,832 shares of company stock valued at $28,538,497. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Arista Networks Stock Up 2.8 %

NYSE:ANET opened at $115.43 on Thursday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52 week low of $60.08 and a 52 week high of $133.57. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $112.28 and its two-hundred day moving average is $99.36. The stock has a market capitalization of $145.41 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 55.49, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.10 and a beta of 1.09.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The technology company reported $0.60 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.52 by $0.08. The company had revenue of $1.81 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.76 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.52% and a net margin of 40.29%. Arista Networks’s revenue was up 20.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.41 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 1.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.