Insider Selling: Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Major Shareholder Sells 205,000 Shares of Stock

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 205,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $151.74, for a total value of $31,106,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 183,023,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,771,917,303.52. This trade represents a 0.11% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Major shareholders that own 10% or more of a company’s stock are required to disclose their sales and purchases with the SEC.

Arista Networks Stock Down 2.4%

Shares of NYSE:ANET traded down $3.84 during trading on Wednesday, hitting $154.17. The stock had a trading volume of 6,981,238 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,514,258. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $83.86 and a 12 month high of $179.80. The company has a market capitalization of $194.13 billion, a PE ratio of 52.80, a PEG ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.67. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $146.62 and its 200 day moving average is $137.31.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.The firm had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.65 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 35.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Equities research analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently issued reports on the company. Rosenblatt Securities increased their target price on Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $181.00 target price (up from $175.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Citigroup decreased their target price on Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $187.00 target price (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $188.00 target price (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have given a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Arista Networks has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $181.84.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ANET. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at $1,558,563,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its stake in Arista Networks by 82.5% during the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,587,115 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,396,939,000 after buying an additional 4,332,659 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp increased its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 3,182.7% in the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 4,012,373 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $525,741,000 after purchasing an additional 3,890,146 shares in the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 59.3% in the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 7,878,360 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,032,302,000 after purchasing an additional 2,934,098 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pictet Asset Management Holding SA increased its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 86.0% in the 1st quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 4,240,951 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $520,168,000 after purchasing an additional 1,960,829 shares in the last quarter. 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.