Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Up 1.3% Following Analyst Upgrade

Key Points

• Arista Networks shares rose 1.3% after Bank of America raised its price target from $185 to $200 and reiterated a buy rating.
• The stock has drawn generally positive Wall Street sentiment, with a consensus rating of Buy and an average target price of $186.47, though one recent downgrade came from Zacks Research.
• Arista’s latest quarterly results beat expectations, with EPS of $0.87 versus $0.81 expected and revenue of $2.71 billion, up 35.1% year over year.

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report)'s stock price traded up 1.3% during trading on Monday after Bank of America raised their price target on the stock from $185.00 to $200.00. Bank of America currently has a buy rating on the stock. Arista Networks traded as high as $159.23 and last traded at $156.3160. 5,971,101 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 33% from the average session volume of 8,852,336 shares. The stock had previously closed at $154.27.

ANET has been the subject of a number of other reports. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Raymond James Financial upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $164.00 target price for the company in a research report on Friday, May 15th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research report on Thursday, April 16th. Finally, Barclays restated an "overweight" rating and set a $195.00 target price (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have assigned a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $186.47.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total value of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 5,209,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. This represents a 7.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total transaction of $4,292,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $1,740,600.64. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 1,943,142 shares of company stock worth $314,941,943. Company insiders own 2.70% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. First National Bank of Mount Dora Trust Investment Services purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the first quarter worth about $5,279,000. Pine Valley Investments Ltd Liability Co increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 31.5% during the first quarter. Pine Valley Investments Ltd Liability Co now owns 10,031 shares of the technology company's stock worth $1,232,000 after purchasing an additional 2,404 shares in the last quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 20.1% during the first quarter. NewEdge Advisors LLC now owns 124,424 shares of the technology company's stock worth $15,277,000 after purchasing an additional 20,797 shares in the last quarter. First Nebraska Trust Co purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the first quarter worth about $1,807,000. Finally, Financial Solutions Advisory Group Inc. purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the first quarter worth about $404,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $196.83 billion, a PE ratio of 53.53, a PEG ratio of 2.38 and a beta of 1.61. The business's 50 day moving average price is $150.97 and its 200 day moving average price is $138.90.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The company 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 company earned $0.65 EPS. Arista Networks'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 predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 earnings per share for the current year.

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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