Insider Selling: Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Major Shareholder Sells $31,106,700.00 in Stock

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 205,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $151.74, for a total value of $31,106,700.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 183,023,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $27,771,917,303.52. This represents a 0.11% 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. Major shareholders that own more than 10% of a company’s stock are required to disclose their transactions with the SEC.

Andreas Bechtolsheim also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, May 26th, Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 220,000 shares of Arista Networks stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.86, for a total value of $34,509,200.00.

Arista Networks Stock Up 2.5%

Shares of ANET opened at $159.09 on Friday. 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 business has a fifty day moving average of $147.52 and a 200 day moving average of $137.61. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.86 and a 52-week high of $179.80.

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. The company had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.Arista Networks’s revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the company earned $0.65 earnings per share. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on ANET. TD Cowen restated a “buy” rating and issued a $200.00 price target (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $188.00 price target (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Evercore reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $200.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. UBS Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $187.00 target price (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $178.00 target price (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $185.72.

Arista Networks News Roundup

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.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Lighthouse Financial Services Inc. ADV purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at $1,549,000. Bensler LLC purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at $6,350,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 6.4% during the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 169,613 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $22,224,000 after buying an additional 10,217 shares during the period. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S increased 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 buying an additional 183,515 shares during the period. Finally, Czech National Bank increased 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 buying an additional 10,525 shares during the period. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.