State of Wisconsin Investment Board Lowers Holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• State of Wisconsin Investment Board reduced its Arista Networks stake by 6.5% in Q4, selling 38,254 shares and ending with 553,065 shares worth about $72.5 million.
• Insiders have also been selling shares, including major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim and insider Kenneth Duda; over the last three months, insiders sold 2.34 million shares valued at roughly $380.9 million.
• Arista Networks reported strong quarterly results, with earnings of $0.87 per share and revenue of $2.71 billion, both above analyst expectations, while analysts currently maintain a consensus Buy rating and average price target of $186.47.

State of Wisconsin Investment Board trimmed its position in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 6.5% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 553,065 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 38,254 shares during the quarter. State of Wisconsin Investment Board's holdings in Arista Networks were worth $72,468,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the company. Board of the Pension Protection Fund purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth $26,000. Knuff & Co LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter worth $29,000. Ameliora Wealth Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth $30,000. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 3rd quarter worth $33,000. Finally, Ares Financial Consulting LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth $34,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insider Activity

In other news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 240,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, June 4th. The stock was sold at an average price of $163.06, for a total value of $39,134,400.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 331,848 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $54,111,134.88. This represents a 41.97% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. 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 dated Friday, April 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $163.31, for a total value of $5,225,920.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at $2,119,110.56. This represents 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. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 2,343,747 shares of company stock valued at $380,853,419. Company insiders own 2.70% of the company's stock.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of ANET stock opened at $168.48 on Wednesday. The stock's 50-day simple moving average is $156.12 and its 200-day simple moving average is $140.71. The firm has a market capitalization of $212.15 billion, a PE ratio of 57.70, a P/E/G ratio of 2.61 and a beta of 1.61. Arista Networks, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $85.58 and a fifty-two week high of $179.80.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data 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. The business had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.The company's revenue was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.65 earnings per share. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts have weighed in on ANET shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Arista Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an "overweight" rating in a report on Thursday, April 16th. Zacks Research cut Arista Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Thursday, May 14th. Weiss Ratings lowered Arista Networks from a "buy (b)" rating to a "buy (b-)" rating in a research report on Monday. TD Cowen reaffirmed a "buy" rating and set a $200.00 target price (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Barclays reaffirmed an "overweight" rating and set a $195.00 target price (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Thursday, May 7th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $186.47.

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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