Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Down 2.7% Following Insider Selling

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price traded down 2.7% during trading on Friday following insider selling activity. The company traded as low as $194.61 and last traded at $195.59. 3,060,879 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 64% from the average session volume of 8,451,858 shares. The stock had previously closed at $201.09.

Specifically, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 13,809 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $191.79, for a total value of $2,648,428.11. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,901,981.43. This trade represents a 58.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Kelly Bodnar Battles sold 422 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $187.34, for a total value of $79,057.48. Following the sale, the director owned 10,194 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,909,743.96. This represents a 3.98% 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. In other news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 26,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $185.42, for a total transaction of $4,820,920.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 452,400 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $83,884,008. This represents a 5.43% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ANET has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wolfe Research restated an “outperform” rating and set a $175.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Citigroup reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday, August 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $225.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $240.00 target price (up from $181.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Truist Financial upped their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $175.00 to $234.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have assigned a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $226.05.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $246.68 billion, a P/E ratio of 61.70, a PEG ratio of 2.09 and a beta of 1.60. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $179.77 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $158.14.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The technology company reported $1.02 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.13. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.37% and a return on equity of 30.65%. The company had revenue of $3.04 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.83 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.73 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 37.7% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.060-1.080 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ANET. Main Street Group LTD purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 1st quarter valued at $26,000. Sankala Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. ABS Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 2nd quarter worth about $29,000. Finally, Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC grew its position in Arista Networks by 184.9% during the first quarter. Hilton Head Capital Partners LLC now owns 245 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $30,000 after buying an additional 159 shares during the period. 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.