Sterling Capital Management LLC Sells 17,403 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• Sterling Capital Management reduced its Arista Networks stake by 40.3% in the first quarter, selling 17,403 shares and leaving it with 25,797 shares worth about $3.17 million.
• Wall Street remains bullish on ANET, with several firms raising price targets; the stock carries a consensus Buy rating and an average target price of $187.63.
• Arista Networks reported strong quarterly results, beating earnings and revenue estimates with $0.87 EPS and $2.71 billion in revenue, while revenue grew 35.1% year over year.

Sterling Capital Management LLC trimmed its holdings in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 40.3% during the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 25,797 shares of the technology company's stock after selling 17,403 shares during the quarter. Sterling Capital Management LLC's holdings in Arista Networks were worth $3,167,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of Arista Networks by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 101,189,629 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $13,258,877,000 after purchasing an additional 1,188,799 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp lifted its position in Arista Networks by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 46,970,697 shares of the technology company's stock worth $6,154,570,000 after buying an additional 628,146 shares during the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 37,171,766 shares of the technology company's stock worth $4,870,618,000 after buying an additional 380,724 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in Arista Networks by 1.8% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,447,629 shares of the technology company's stock valued at $3,455,095,000 after acquiring an additional 477,625 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at $1,558,563,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

ANET has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Morgan Stanley reissued an "overweight" rating and issued a $190.00 price objective (up from $180.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, June 12th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded Arista Networks to a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upped their target price on Arista Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. Finally, Zacks Research downgraded Arista Networks from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Thursday, May 14th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $187.63.

Arista Networks Trading Up 0.1%

Shares of ANET stock opened at $157.80 on Monday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a twelve month low of $97.14 and a twelve month high of $179.80. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $159.49 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $142.81. The stock has a market capitalization of $198.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 54.04, a P/E/G ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.61.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly 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 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 business's revenue for the quarter was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.65 earnings per share. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Research analysts predict that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.57, for a total transaction of $43,048,200.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 182,543,048 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $30,223,652,457.36. This trade represents a 0.14% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 5,209,207 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $924,321,690.08. This represents a 7.59% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 2,647,080 shares of company stock worth $431,329,762 in the last three months. Insiders own 2.70% of the company's stock.

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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