Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. Acquires 76,800 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. raised its stake in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 15.4% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 576,991 shares of the technology company’s stock after purchasing an additional 76,800 shares during the quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co.’s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $75,603,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Lighthouse Financial Services Inc. ADV acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter valued at $1,549,000. Bensler LLC acquired a new position in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth about $6,350,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. raised its position in Arista Networks by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 169,613 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $22,224,000 after purchasing an additional 10,217 shares during the last quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 38.3% during the third quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 662,139 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $96,480,000 after purchasing an additional 183,515 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 4.0% during the fourth quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 272,284 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $35,677,000 after purchasing an additional 10,525 shares in the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Trending Headlines about Arista Networks

Here are the key news stories impacting Arista Networks this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Zacks highlighted Arista Networks as a strong growth stock, pointing to its appeal across growth and momentum screens and reinforcing the view that ANET remains a high-quality long-term compounder. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Another Zacks note said ANET is benefiting from AI infrastructure spending, with hyperscalers expanding networks and driving demand for next-generation Ethernet products, which supports the company’s growth outlook. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Wall Street remains constructive on Arista Networks, with multiple analysts reiterating Buy/Overweight ratings and lifting price targets, reflecting confidence in continued revenue and earnings growth.
• Positive Sentiment: Recent earnings were solid, with Arista beating EPS and revenue estimates and posting 35% year-over-year revenue growth, which continues to underpin bullish sentiment.
• Neutral Sentiment: Institutional ownership remains high, and several small new positions were reported, but these filings are unlikely to be a major near-term driver on their own.
• Negative Sentiment: Recent insider sales by CFO Chantelle Yvette Breithaupt, CEO Jayshree Ullal, and major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim may create some short-term caution, even though the trades were made under pre-arranged 10b5-1 plans.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts have issued reports on ANET shares. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $178.00 price target (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Morgan Stanley restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $180.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, May 1st. Evercore reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $200.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities upped their target price on Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. 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 MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $185.72.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Friday, April 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.31, for a total transaction of $5,225,920.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $2,119,110.56. The trade was a 71.15% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 220,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $156.86, for a total transaction of $34,509,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 182,803,048 shares in the company, valued at approximately $28,674,486,109.28. The trade was a 0.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 1,943,142 shares of company stock valued at $314,618,583 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 2.70% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of ANET opened at $159.09 on Friday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $83.86 and a one year high of $179.80. The company has a market cap of $200.33 billion, a PE ratio of 54.48, a P/E/G ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 1.67. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $147.52 and a 200-day moving average of $137.61.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 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 business had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.65 EPS. Arista Networks’s quarterly revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.