Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Up 3% – Here’s Why

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price rose 3% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $172.00 and last traded at $169.8360. Approximately 11,016,482 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 26% from the average session volume of 8,742,385 shares. The stock had previously closed at $164.93.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts have issued reports on ANET shares. TD Cowen reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $200.00 price objective (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. UBS Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $187.00 target price (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised Arista Networks to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Finally, Raymond James Financial raised Arista Networks from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $164.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 15th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $187.63.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $213.86 billion, a PE ratio of 58.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 1.61. The company’s fifty day moving average is $158.10 and its 200-day moving average is $141.44.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In related news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.57, for a total transaction of $43,048,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 182,543,048 shares in the company, valued at $30,223,652,457.36. This represents a 0.14% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total value of $75,944,320.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 5,209,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. The trade was a 7.59% decrease in their position. 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. Over the last three months, insiders sold 2,603,747 shares of company stock valued at $423,901,619. Corporate insiders own 2.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 101,189,629 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $13,258,877,000 after acquiring an additional 1,188,799 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 46,970,697 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $6,154,570,000 after purchasing an additional 628,146 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its position in shares of Arista Networks by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 37,171,766 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,870,618,000 after purchasing an additional 380,724 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of Arista Networks by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,447,629 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,455,095,000 after purchasing an additional 477,625 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter valued at $1,558,563,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.