Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Down 4.6% - Should You Sell?

Key Points

• Arista Networks shares fell 4.6% on Friday, trading as low as $154.74 on volume that was about 35% above average, before closing near $157.80.
• Despite the pullback, Wall Street remains mostly upbeat: analysts rate the stock a Buy overall, with a consensus price target of $187.63 versus several recent targets in the $164-$185 range.
• The company’s latest quarter showed strong fundamentals, with EPS of $0.87 beating expectations and revenue rising 35.1% year over year to $2.71 billion; however, insider selling has been notable in recent months.

Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) fell 4.6% on Friday . The stock traded as low as $154.74 and last traded at $157.7990. Approximately 11,756,681 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 35% from the average daily volume of 8,739,146 shares. The stock had previously closed at $165.45.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ANET has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Wolfe Research reaffirmed an "outperform" rating and set a $175.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, June 10th. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a "buy" rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Thursday, May 14th. Raymond James Financial upgraded Arista Networks from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $164.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Friday, May 15th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a "buy" rating and issued a $185.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $187.63.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The company has a market cap of $198.70 billion, a PE ratio of 54.04, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.61. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $159.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $142.61.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.65 EPS. The business'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. Sell-side analysts expect that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 13,809 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $155.04, for a total transaction of $2,140,947.36. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,917 shares in the company, valued at $1,537,531.68. This represents a 58.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction 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 transaction, the insider owned 182,543,048 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $30,223,652,457.36. This represents a 0.14% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 2,647,080 shares of company stock valued at $431,329,762 over the last quarter. 2.70% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

Institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,558,563,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 82.5% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,587,115 shares of the technology company's stock worth $1,396,939,000 after buying an additional 4,332,659 shares in the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp boosted its position in Arista Networks by 3,182.7% in the 4th 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. grew its stake 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 worth $1,032,302,000 after acquiring an additional 2,934,098 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pictet Asset Management Holding SA grew its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 86.0% in the first quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 4,240,951 shares of the technology company's stock worth $520,168,000 after acquiring an additional 1,960,829 shares in the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.

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