Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Gap Down Following Insider Selling

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price gapped down before the market opened on Thursday after an insider sold shares in the company. The stock had previously closed at $174.37, but opened at $163.08. Arista Networks shares last traded at $158.5790, with a volume of 2,339,893 shares changing hands.

Specifically, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $169.09, for a total transaction of $1,352,720.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 200,333 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,874,306.97. The trade was a 3.84% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have issued reports on ANET shares. Citigroup reduced their price target 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. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $180.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, May 1st. Raymond James Financial raised Arista Networks from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $164.00 price target for the company in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Susquehanna upgraded Arista Networks to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 1st. Finally, KeyCorp restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $178.00 price objective (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $185.72.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $201.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.92, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 1.61. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $149.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $138.46.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 35.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.65 EPS. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new position in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. Main Street Group LTD acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the 1st quarter worth $26,000. Sankala Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Finally, Knuff & Co LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 3rd quarter worth about $29,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Company Profile

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.