Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Updates Q2 2026 Earnings Guidance

Key Points

• Q2 2026 guidance: Arista issued EPS guidance of $0.880 (above the $0.840 consensus) and revenue guidance of $2.8 billion, essentially in line with estimates.
• Analyst sentiment has strengthened with multiple upgrades and higher price targets; the MarketBeat consensus rating is "Buy" with a target of $178.67.
• Insider selling has been heavy—CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares (~$75.9M) and insiders sold ~1.49M shares worth $245M in the last three months, while institutional ownership remains high at ~82.5%.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) updated its second quarter 2026 earnings guidance on Tuesday. The company provided earnings per share guidance of 0.880-0.880 for the period, compared to the consensus earnings per share estimate of 0.840. The company issued revenue guidance of $2.8 billion-$2.8 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $2.8 billion.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have issued reports on the company. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued a "buy" rating and issued a $188.00 target price (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Rosenblatt Securities upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $165.00 to $180.00 in a research note on Tuesday, April 7th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a "buy (b-)" rating to a "hold (c+)" rating in a research note on Friday. Susquehanna upgraded shares of Arista Networks to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 1st. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and three have given a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Arista Networks has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $178.67.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE:ANET traded down $2.44 during trading on Tuesday, hitting $170.18. The company's stock had a trading volume of 10,406,937 shares, compared to its average volume of 7,744,835. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $141.84 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $137.69. The company has a market capitalization of $214.29 billion, a PE ratio of 61.66, a P/E/G ratio of 3.03 and a beta of 1.67. Arista Networks has a fifty-two week low of $82.80 and a fifty-two week high of $179.80.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.38 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.99% and a return on equity of 30.37%. The company's quarterly revenue was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.66 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts expect that Arista Networks will post 3.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total value of $4,292,480.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $1,740,600.64. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total value of $75,944,320.00. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly 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 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 sold 1,494,729 shares of company stock worth $245,304,519 in the last three months. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ANET. Janus Henderson Group PLC boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 69.8% in the fourth quarter. Janus Henderson Group PLC now owns 3,377,685 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $442,542,000 after purchasing an additional 1,387,902 shares in the last quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 17.3% in the fourth quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 7,346,710 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $962,639,000 after purchasing an additional 1,085,647 shares in the last quarter. Bridgewater Associates LP boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 95.4% in the fourth quarter. Bridgewater Associates LP now owns 1,329,442 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $174,197,000 after purchasing an additional 649,076 shares in the last quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 28.7% in the second quarter. Worldquant Millennium Advisors LLC now owns 2,673,388 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $273,514,000 after purchasing an additional 596,895 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Amundi boosted its holdings in Arista Networks by 5.3% in the fourth quarter. Amundi now owns 8,573,270 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $1,123,356,000 after purchasing an additional 433,742 shares in the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Arista Networks

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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