Legal & General Group Plc Boosts Stock Holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• Legal & General Group Plc increased its Arista Networks stake by 1.8% in the fourth quarter, ending with nearly 8.0 million shares worth about $1.05 billion.
• Arista Networks reported strong Q1 results, with EPS of $0.87 beating estimates and revenue of $2.71 billion topping expectations, while sales rose 35.1% year over year.
• Wall Street remains broadly bullish on ANET: analysts have an average Buy rating and a consensus price target of about $181.84, though some recent targets were trimmed slightly.

Legal & General Group Plc grew its position in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 1.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 7,988,853 shares of the technology company's stock after buying an additional 141,782 shares during the quarter. Legal & General Group Plc owned 0.63% of Arista Networks worth $1,046,779,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Knuff & Co LLC bought a new position in Arista Networks during the third quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Ameliora Wealth Management Ltd. bought a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $30,000. Quarry LP bought a new position in Arista Networks during the third quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Finally, Ares Financial Consulting LLC bought a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts recently weighed in on ANET shares. Citigroup lowered their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Needham & Company LLC restated a "buy" rating and set a $185.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. UBS Group restated a "buy" rating and set a $187.00 price objective (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Morgan Stanley restated an "overweight" rating and set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have given a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $181.84.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 5,209,207 shares in the company, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. This trade represents a 7.59% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible 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 transaction of $5,225,920.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $2,119,110.56. The trade was a 71.15% 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 1,503,278 shares of company stock worth $246,655,981 over the last quarter. Insiders own 2.70% of the company's stock.

Trending Headlines about Arista Networks

Here are the key news stories impacting Arista Networks this week:

• Positive Sentiment: Arista was highlighted for strong cash flow growth, with operating cash flow reaching $1.69 billion in Q1 2026, reinforcing confidence in the durability of its AI and cloud networking demand. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: The company was named a Leader in Gartner’s 2026 Magic Quadrant for enterprise wired and wireless LAN, and it unveiled new campus networking hardware plus an upgraded AIOps platform, broadening its growth opportunity beyond data centers. Article Title
• Positive Sentiment: Arista continues to be featured by analysts and market commentary as a key “pick-and-shovel” AI stock and one of the cloud-computing names benefiting from hyperscaler AI buildouts. Article Title
• Neutral Sentiment: Several articles repeated that Arista has strong profitability and upside potential, but these were largely recap-style mentions rather than new fundamental catalysts. Article Title
• Negative Sentiment: One recent headline focused on “margin anxiety” around the stock, suggesting some investors still worry about profitability pressure even amid strong growth. Article Title

Arista Networks Trading Down 0.1%

ANET opened at $153.92 on Monday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $83.86 and a 1-year high of $179.80. The company has a market capitalization of $193.82 billion, a PE ratio of 52.71, a PEG ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.67. The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $145.35 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $137.04.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping 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 business had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.65 earnings per share. The company's quarterly revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Equities analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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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