Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading 2.4% Higher – What’s Next?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price shot up 2.4% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $170.16 and last traded at $165.5420. Approximately 8,068,554 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 7% from the average session volume of 8,717,293 shares. The stock had previously closed at $161.74.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on ANET shares. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Rosenblatt Securities raised their price objective on Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $200.00 price objective (up from $178.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Thursday, June 18th. Citigroup lowered their target price on Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $181.00 price target (up from $175.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $187.63.

Arista Networks Trading Up 2.4%

The firm has a market capitalization of $208.45 billion, a PE ratio of 56.69, a PEG ratio of 2.50 and a beta of 1.61. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $159.19 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $142.35.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.62 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.Arista Networks’s quarterly revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.65 EPS. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In related news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.57, for a total transaction of $43,048,200.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 182,543,048 shares in the company, valued at approximately $30,223,652,457.36. This trade represents a 0.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 5,209,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $924,321,690.08. The trade was a 7.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 2,647,080 shares of company stock valued at $431,329,762 in the last three months. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ANET. Lighthouse Financial Services Inc. ADV acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,549,000. Bensler LLC acquired a new position in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth $6,350,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in Arista Networks by 6.4% during the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 169,613 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $22,224,000 after purchasing an additional 10,217 shares during the last quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. increased its stake in Arista Networks by 59.8% during the fourth quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 17,621 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,309,000 after purchasing an additional 6,591 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Reaves W H & Co. Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth $3,058,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

About Arista Networks

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.