Smith Salley Wealth Management Increases Stake in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Smith Salley Wealth Management raised its stake in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 1.9% in the first quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 197,992 shares of the technology company’s stock after acquiring an additional 3,648 shares during the quarter. Arista Networks makes up approximately 1.2% of Smith Salley Wealth Management’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 24th largest position. Smith Salley Wealth Management’s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $24,310,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $1,558,563,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in Arista Networks by 82.5% during the third 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 grew its position in Arista Networks by 3,182.7% during 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 buying an additional 3,890,146 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its holdings in 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 buying an additional 2,934,098 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pictet Asset Management Holding SA raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 310.6% in the fourth quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 2,280,122 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $298,868,000 after acquiring an additional 1,724,758 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Stock Up 0.1%

Shares of NYSE ANET opened at $169.84 on Monday. The company’s 50-day simple moving average is $158.10 and its 200-day simple moving average is $141.53. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $85.58 and a 52-week high of $179.80. The firm has a market cap of $213.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 58.16, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.62 and a beta of 1.61.

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

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have recently issued reports on ANET. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $195.00 target price (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. Raymond James Financial upgraded Arista Networks from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $164.00 price target for the company in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price target on Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $200.00 price target (up from $178.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Weiss Ratings lowered Arista Networks from a “buy (b)” rating to a “buy (b-)” rating in a report on Monday, June 15th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $187.63.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $165.57, for a total transaction of $43,048,200.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 182,543,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $30,223,652,457.36. This represents a 0.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 13,809 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $155.04, for a total value of $2,140,947.36. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,537,531.68. The trade was a 58.20% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 2,603,747 shares of company stock worth $423,901,619 in the last quarter. Corporate 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.