BlackRock Inc. Has $15.52 Billion Holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• BlackRock reduced its Arista Networks stake by 0.6% in the second quarter, selling 523,799 shares but still holding 91.38 million shares valued at $15.52 billion, or 7.26% of the company. Institutional investors collectively own 82.47% of Arista.
• Arista insiders sold 4.34 million shares worth approximately $798.6 million during the latest quarter, including significant sales by major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim and CEO Jayshree Ullal under pre-arranged trading plans.
• Analyst sentiment remains strongly positive, with an average “Buy” rating and a $226.05 price target. Arista also exceeded quarterly expectations, reporting $1.02 in EPS and $3.04 billion in revenue, up 37.7% year over year.

BlackRock Inc. decreased its holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 0.6% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 91,383,843 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 523,799 shares during the quarter. BlackRock Inc. owned 7.26% of Arista Networks worth $15,524,287,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth $1,558,563,000. M&T Bank Corp raised its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 3,182.7% in the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 4,012,373 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $525,741,000 after purchasing an additional 3,890,146 shares during the last quarter. Franklin Resources Inc. raised its holdings 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 valued at $1,032,302,000 after purchasing an additional 2,934,098 shares during the last quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA lifted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 34.6% during the second quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 9,725,196 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $1,712,788,000 after purchasing an additional 2,497,275 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pictet Asset Management Holding SA lifted its position in shares of Arista Networks by 86.0% during the first quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 4,240,951 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $520,168,000 after purchasing an additional 1,960,829 shares in the last quarter. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 300,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $203.30, for a total value of $60,990,000.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 181,143,048 shares in the company, valued at $36,826,381,658.40. The trade was a 0.17% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 767,029 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $201.22, for a total value of $154,341,575.38. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 16,387,981 shares in the company, valued at $3,297,589,536.82. This represents a 4.47% 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. In the last quarter, insiders sold 4,335,168 shares of company stock worth $798,637,629. 2.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on ANET. TD Cowen upped their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $210.00 to $250.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Jefferies Financial Group set a $250.00 target price on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating and issued a $259.00 target price (up from $187.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Bank of America reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $240.00 target price (up from $200.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Zacks Research raised Arista Networks from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, August 10th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have issued a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $226.05.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

NYSE ANET opened at $202.05 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $254.83 billion, a PE ratio of 63.74, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.60. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $114.52 and a 52-week high of $214.89. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $175.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $155.18.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The technology company reported $1.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.89 by $0.13. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.37% and a return on equity of 30.65%. The firm had revenue of $3.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $2.83 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.73 earnings per share. The company's quarterly revenue was up 37.7% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.060-1.080 EPS. As a group, analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.7 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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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