Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Up 5% – Still a Buy?

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) shot up 5% during trading on Thursday . The company traded as high as $147.89 and last traded at $147.7620. 14,415,477 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 66% from the average session volume of 8,703,971 shares. The stock had previously closed at $140.69.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms have commented on ANET. 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. 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. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. 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. Finally, TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating and issued a $200.00 price objective (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $182.83.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The business’s 50 day moving average price is $143.96 and its 200-day moving average price is $137.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $186.06 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 50.60, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.20 and a beta of 1.67.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.65 earnings per share. The business’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, analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.26 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Arista Networks

In other news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total value of $4,292,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,740,600.64. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the firm’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 sale, the chief executive officer owned 5,209,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $924,321,690.08. This trade represents a 7.59% 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. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 1,502,729 shares of company stock worth $246,707,719. Company insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

Institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 101,189,629 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $13,258,877,000 after acquiring an additional 1,188,799 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 46,970,697 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $6,154,570,000 after acquiring an additional 628,146 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 37,171,766 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $4,870,618,000 after acquiring an additional 380,724 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.8% during the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,447,629 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,455,095,000 after acquiring an additional 477,625 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth approximately $1,558,563,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.