Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Gap Down Following Insider Selling

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price gapped down before the market opened on Thursday following insider selling activity. The stock had previously closed at $174.37, but opened at $163.08. Arista Networks shares last traded at $158.5790, with a volume of 2,339,893 shares trading hands.

Specifically, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, June 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $169.09, for a total value of $1,352,720.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director directly owned 200,333 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,874,306.97. The trade was a 3.84% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing 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.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “hold (c+)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Friday, May 15th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Susquehanna upgraded shares of Arista Networks to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price objective on Arista Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, April 16th. Finally, Truist Financial set a $175.00 price objective on Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $185.72.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The business’s 50 day moving average price is $149.88 and its 200-day moving average price is $138.46. The company has a market cap of $201.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 54.92, a PEG ratio of 2.70 and a beta of 1.61.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.10% and a net margin of 38.32%.The business had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.65 EPS. Arista Networks’s revenue for the quarter was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. As a group, research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Lighthouse Financial Services Inc. ADV acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $1,549,000. Bensler LLC acquired a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $6,350,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. increased its stake in Arista Networks by 6.4% in the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 169,613 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $22,224,000 after purchasing an additional 10,217 shares in the last quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S increased its stake in Arista Networks by 38.3% in the third quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 662,139 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $96,480,000 after purchasing an additional 183,515 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 59.8% in the fourth quarter. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. now owns 17,621 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $2,309,000 after purchasing an additional 6,591 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

About Arista Networks

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.