Insider Selling: Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Director Sells $61,797.68 in Stock

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $146.44, for a total transaction of $61,797.68. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 10,078 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,475,822.32. This trade represents a 4.02% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan.

Arista Networks Stock Up 0.6%

NYSE ANET opened at $155.21 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $195.44 billion, a PE ratio of 53.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.67. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $147.06 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $137.46. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 12-month low of $83.86 and a 12-month high of $179.80.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The firm had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.65 earnings per share. The company’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. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 EPS for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on ANET. Susquehanna upgraded shares of Arista Networks to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 1st. KeyCorp restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $178.00 price objective (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $164.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Friday, May 15th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $188.00 price objective (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Evercore restated an “outperform” rating and issued a $200.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and two have given 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 $185.72.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $1,558,563,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 82.5% in the 3rd 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 period. M&T Bank Corp increased its holdings in 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 valued at $525,741,000 after buying an additional 3,890,146 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 59.3% in the 4th quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 7,878,360 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,032,302,000 after buying an additional 2,934,098 shares during the period. Finally, Pictet Asset Management Holding SA increased its holdings in 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 valued at $520,168,000 after buying an additional 1,960,829 shares during the period. 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.