Madison Asset Management LLC Sells 27,839 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Madison Asset Management LLC decreased its stake in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 3.9% during the first quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 684,316 shares of the technology company’s stock after selling 27,839 shares during the period. Arista Networks accounts for 1.0% of Madison Asset Management LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 26th largest position. Madison Asset Management LLC owned about 0.05% of Arista Networks worth $84,020,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in ANET. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at about $1,558,563,000. M&T Bank Corp boosted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 3,182.7% in the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 4,012,373 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $525,741,000 after acquiring an additional 3,890,146 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 59.3% in the fourth quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. now owns 7,878,360 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,032,302,000 after acquiring an additional 2,934,098 shares during the period. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA grew its stake in Arista Networks by 86.0% during the first quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 4,240,951 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $520,168,000 after acquiring an additional 1,960,829 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC purchased a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $198,285,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ANET has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Barclays reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $195.00 target price (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. Citigroup reduced their target price on Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Wells Fargo & Company restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $200.00 target price (up from $185.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday. Erste Group Bank raised Arista Networks from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Arista Networks to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 10th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have given a Buy rating and one has issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks presently has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $188.95.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

ANET stock opened at $169.17 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $213.02 billion, a PE ratio of 57.94, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.59 and a beta of 1.60. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $162.41 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $147.60. Arista Networks, Inc. has a one year low of $106.99 and a one year high of $189.82.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate 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 period in the prior year, the business posted $0.65 earnings per share. The company’s 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. On average, research analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arista Networks news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.57, for a total value of $43,048,200.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 182,543,048 shares in the company, valued at approximately $30,223,652,457.36. The trade was a 0.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. This trade represents 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. Insiders sold a total of 2,692,983 shares of company stock worth $452,119,385 over the last ninety days. Insiders own 2.70% 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.