Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Down 3.7% – Here’s Why

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) shares fell 3.7% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as low as $156.65 and last traded at $160.3830. 9,716,918 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 11% from the average session volume of 8,765,878 shares. The stock had previously closed at $166.62.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on ANET. Zacks Research lowered shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $181.00 price target (up from $175.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price target on Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $195.00 price objective (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Thursday, May 7th. Finally, Citigroup reduced their target price on Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $187.63.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $201.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.93, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 1.61. The business has a fifty day moving average price of $159.67 and a 200 day moving average price of $143.55.

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

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 5,209,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. This represents a 7.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 15th. The shares were 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 owned 182,543,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $30,223,652,457.36. The trade was a 0.14% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 2,639,080 shares of company stock worth $430,322,162. Insiders own 2.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of ANET. Board of the Pension Protection Fund acquired a new stake in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth $26,000. Main Street Group LTD acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 1st quarter valued at $26,000. Sankala Group LLC acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Finally, Knuff & Co LLC bought a new position 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.