Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Up 4.5% - Here's What Happened

Key Points

• Arista Networks shares rose 4.5% in Tuesday trading, hitting an intraday high of $142.94 on volume well above average. The move came as investors reacted to recent momentum in the stock.
• Analysts remain bullish on ANET, with several firms recently raising ratings or price targets. The stock now carries a consensus Buy rating and an average price target of $182.83.
• Recent earnings were strong, with Arista reporting $0.87 EPS versus $0.81 expected and revenue of $2.71 billion, up 35.1% year over year. The company also said it expects Q2 2026 EPS of 0.880.

Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) were up 4.5% during mid-day trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $142.94 and last traded at $142.5960. Approximately 12,664,754 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 48% from the average daily volume of 8,578,232 shares. The stock had previously closed at $136.43.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on ANET shares. Susquehanna upgraded Arista Networks to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 1st. Piper Sandler reiterated an "overweight" rating and set a $181.00 price target (up from $175.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research upgraded Arista Networks from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, April 13th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an "overweight" rating and set a $180.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Finally, KeyCorp restated an "overweight" rating and issued a $178.00 target price (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, February 13th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus price target of $182.83.

Arista Networks Trading Up 4.5%

The firm has a market capitalization of $179.56 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 48.83, a PEG ratio of 2.24 and a beta of 1.67. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $143.55 and a 200-day moving average of $137.77.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.The business had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.65 earnings per share. Arista Networks's revenue for the quarter 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, equities research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.18 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 5,209,207 shares of the company's stock, valued at $924,321,690.08. This trade represents a 7.59% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total transaction of $4,292,480.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,740,600.64. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 1,502,729 shares of company stock worth $246,707,719 in the last quarter. 3.54% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of ANET. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,558,563,000. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 2,829.0% during the 3rd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 5,721,156 shares of the technology company's stock worth $833,630,000 after acquiring an additional 5,525,828 shares in the last quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership boosted its stake in shares of 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 acquiring an additional 4,332,659 shares in the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 3,182.7% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 4,012,373 shares of the technology company's stock worth $525,741,000 after acquiring an additional 3,890,146 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Franklin Resources Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 59.3% during the 4th 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. 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.

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