Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC Acquires 56,000 Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Key Points

• Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC boosted its stake in Arista Networks by 248.9% in Q1, buying 56,000 additional shares to bring its total to 78,500 shares worth about $9.64 million.
• Institutional ownership remains very high, with 82.47% of Arista shares held by institutions, and several large investors recently increased positions in the company.
• Analyst and business sentiment is broadly positive thanks to Arista’s role in AI/data-center networking, strong quarterly earnings and revenue growth, and multiple recent analyst upgrades with a consensus "Buy" rating.

Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC lifted its holdings in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET - Free Report) by 248.9% during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 78,500 shares of the technology company's stock after buying an additional 56,000 shares during the quarter. Arista Networks makes up about 1.3% of Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC's holdings, making the stock its 26th biggest holding. Zweig DiMenna Associates LLC's holdings in Arista Networks were worth $9,638,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth about $1,558,563,000. M&T Bank Corp grew its holdings in 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 worth $525,741,000 after purchasing an additional 3,890,146 shares during the period. Franklin Resources Inc. increased its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 59.3% during 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 in the last quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA increased its stake 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. Finally, Clearbridge Investments LLC purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $198,285,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 240,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Thursday, July 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $162.67, for a total value of $39,040,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 182,043,048 shares in the company, valued at $29,612,942,618.16. The trade was a 0.13% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $167.06, for a total value of $1,336,480.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 192,333 shares in the company, valued at approximately $32,131,150.98. The trade was a 3.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. 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. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 3,500,983 shares of company stock valued at $584,395,630. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Key Stories Impacting Arista Networks

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

• Positive Sentiment: Market and analyst commentary continue to frame Arista as a key AI infrastructure winner, citing strong demand for data-center networking, healthy order backlogs, and expectations that AI spending will keep driving growth. UBS sees data center investments to drive demand but supply constraints persist
• Positive Sentiment: Arista was highlighted as a “high-growth wide-moat” name and included among infrastructure stocks tackling AI bottlenecks, reinforcing confidence in its long-term competitive position and upside potential. Beyond the Foundry: 5 Infrastructure Stocks Tackling the AI Bottlenecks
• Positive Sentiment: Recent technical commentary says ANET is looking strong and has been setting new all-time highs, which can attract momentum-focused buyers. Arista Networks stock looks technically strong as it sets new all-time highs
• Neutral Sentiment: CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 242,422 shares in a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. The sale was disclosed normally and does not necessarily signal a change in fundamentals, but large insider sales can still temper sentiment. SEC filing
• Neutral Sentiment: Some recent commentary notes that another enterprise AI stock may have more near-term upside because of its lower valuation, which could modestly cap enthusiasm for ANET. Workday vs. Arista: Which enterprise AI stock has more upside now?
• Negative Sentiment: A recent note said ANET underperformed the broader market in the prior session, reminding investors that the stock can see short-term volatility even with strong longer-term fundamentals. Arista Networks suffers a larger drop than the general market

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of analysts have recently commented on ANET shares. Raymond James Financial raised Arista Networks from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $164.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 15th. Bank of America raised their price objective on Arista Networks from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, June 8th. Susquehanna upgraded Arista Networks to a "strong-buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, April 1st. Truist Financial set a $175.00 target price on Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Weiss Ratings raised Arista Networks from a "buy (b-)" rating to a "buy (b)" rating in a research note on Monday. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of "Buy" and a consensus target price of $188.16.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ANET opened at $182.18 on Wednesday. The firm's 50 day moving average price is $160.20 and its 200-day moving average price is $146.56. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $104.68 and a 52-week high of $189.82. The company has a market cap of $229.41 billion, a PE ratio of 62.39, a P/E/G ratio of 2.79 and a beta of 1.60.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 company had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned $0.65 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue was up 35.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 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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