Employees Retirement System of Texas Has $87.58 Million Stock Position in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• Employees Retirement System of Texas increased its Arista Networks stake by 12.8% in the fourth quarter, ending with 668,391 shares valued at about $87.6 million.
• Wall Street sentiment remains bullish on Arista Networks, with analysts assigning an overall “Buy” rating and an average price target of $181.84, while several firms recently raised their targets or upgraded the stock.
• Arista reported strong quarterly results, posting $0.87 EPS and $2.71 billion in revenue, both above expectations, with revenue up 35.1% year over year.

Employees Retirement System of Texas lifted its position in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 12.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 668,391 shares of the technology company's stock after acquiring an additional 75,847 shares during the quarter. Employees Retirement System of Texas owned approximately 0.05% of Arista Networks worth $87,579,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. Steel Grove Capital Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth about $445,000. Syverson Strege & Co boosted its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 4.5% in the 4th quarter. Syverson Strege & Co now owns 2,232 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $292,000 after purchasing an additional 97 shares during the last quarter. Flputnam Investment Management Co. grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 34.4% during the 4th quarter. Flputnam Investment Management Co. now owns 167,330 shares of the technology company's stock worth $21,925,000 after buying an additional 42,797 shares during the period. Malaga Cove Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 30.5% during the 4th quarter. Malaga Cove Capital LLC now owns 15,162 shares of the technology company's stock worth $1,987,000 after buying an additional 3,547 shares during the period. Finally, Arvest Bank Trust Division raised its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1,587.8% during the fourth quarter. Arvest Bank Trust Division now owns 64,037 shares of the technology company's stock worth $8,391,000 after buying an additional 60,243 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on ANET shares. Barclays reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and issued a $195.00 price objective (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. KeyCorp reiterated an "overweight" rating and set a $178.00 target price (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Susquehanna raised Arista Networks to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 1st. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Finally, Raymond James Financial raised Arista Networks from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $164.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $181.84.

Insider Activity

In related news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 5,209,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. The trade was a 7.59% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, April 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.31, for a total value of $5,225,920.00. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,119,110.56. The trade was a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 1,501,885 shares of company stock worth $246,477,400. Corporate insiders own 2.70% of the company's stock.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Arista Networks stock opened at $158.21 on Wednesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $199.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.18, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.67. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $146.24 and its 200 day simple moving average is $137.17. Arista Networks, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.86 and a fifty-two week high of $179.80.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last issued its 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. The firm had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The business's quarterly revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.65 earnings per share. 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 3.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Arista Networks 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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