Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Down 1.6% - Time to Sell?

Key Points

• Arista Networks shares fell 1.6% on Friday, trading as low as $170.91 on lighter volume than usual before closing near $173.79.
• Despite the stock dip, Wall Street sentiment remains upbeat: the consensus rating is “Buy,” with an average price target of $189.74. Recent analyst actions included a Citi target cut to $173, while UBS, Erste Group, and Susquehanna issued or maintained bullish ratings.
• The company recently beat earnings and revenue expectations, posting $0.87 EPS on $2.71 billion in revenue, while insiders have also been selling shares in recent months, including CEO Jayshree Ullal’s large pre-planned sale.

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report)'s share price fell 1.6% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $170.91 and last traded at $173.7870. Approximately 4,631,840 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 46% from the average session volume of 8,606,536 shares. The stock had previously closed at $176.61.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on ANET shares. Citigroup dropped their target price on Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Erste Group Bank upgraded Arista Networks from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, July 15th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating and set a $187.00 price target (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Susquehanna upgraded shares of Arista Networks to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, April 1st. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised Arista Networks from a "buy (b-)" rating to a "buy (b)" rating in a research report on Monday, July 13th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have given a Buy rating and one has given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $189.74.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $218.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 59.52, a PEG ratio of 2.68 and a beta of 1.60. The company's 50 day moving average is $164.31 and its two-hundred day moving average is $148.52.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.The firm had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.62 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.65 EPS. The company's revenue for the quarter was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Research analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In related news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 234,578 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Friday, July 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $187.18, for a total value of $43,908,310.04. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 5,134,207 shares of the company's stock, valued at $961,020,866.26. The trade was a 4.37% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 17,333 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $171.42, for a total transaction of $2,971,222.86. Following the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,224,345.92. This represents a 57.19% 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. Insiders have sold 2,264,983 shares of company stock worth $376,175,065 over the last three months. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 101,189,629 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $13,258,877,000 after purchasing an additional 1,188,799 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp boosted its position in Arista Networks by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 46,970,697 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $6,154,570,000 after buying an additional 628,146 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD grew its stake in Arista Networks by 1.0% during the fourth 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 buying an additional 380,724 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,447,629 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $3,455,095,000 after purchasing an additional 477,625 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,558,563,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.

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