Andreas Bechtolsheim Sells 240,000 Shares of Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 240,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, June 4th. The shares were sold at an average price of $163.06, for a total transaction of $39,134,400.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 331,848 shares in the company, valued at $54,111,134.88. The trade was a 41.97% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Large shareholders that own 10% or more of a company’s stock are required to disclose their sales and purchases with the SEC.

Andreas Bechtolsheim also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, May 26th, Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 220,000 shares of Arista Networks stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.86, for a total transaction of $34,509,200.00.
• On Friday, May 22nd, Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 205,000 shares of Arista Networks stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $151.74, for a total value of $31,106,700.00.

Arista Networks Trading Up 1.3%

Arista Networks stock traded up $2.05 during trading hours on Monday, reaching $156.32. 6,036,938 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 10,460,316. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12 month low of $85.58 and a 12 month high of $179.80. The firm has a market cap of $196.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.53, a PEG ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 1.61. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $151.65 and a 200 day moving average of $139.13.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.The company had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.65 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly 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. As a group, research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. Knuff & Co LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter valued at about $29,000. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new stake in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Sankala Group LLC bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at about $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc purchased a new position in Arista Networks during the 4th quarter valued at about $28,000. Finally, Main Street Group LTD purchased a new position in Arista Networks during the 1st quarter valued at about $26,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently weighed in on the company. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $200.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Bank of America upped their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Arista Networks from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “buy” rating and issued a $185.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $195.00 price target (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $186.47.

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.