Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Down 4.2% on Insider Selling

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) fell 4.2% during trading on Tuesday following insider selling activity. The company traded as low as $162.59 and last traded at $166.0260. 8,958,718 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 2% from the average session volume of 8,744,290 shares. The stock had previously closed at $173.28.

Specifically, 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 transaction of $1,336,480.00. Following the sale, the director owned 192,333 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $32,131,150.98. This represents a 3.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 260,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $164.22, for a total transaction of $42,697,200.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 182,283,048 shares in the company, valued at approximately $29,934,522,142.56. This represents a 0.14% 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.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently commented on ANET shares. Barclays reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $195.00 price objective (up from $184.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Thursday, May 7th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft raised shares of Arista Networks to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, June 10th. Citigroup reduced their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research lowered Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $185.00 to $200.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, June 8th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-one have issued a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks presently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $187.63.

Arista Networks Trading Down 4.2%

The firm has a 50 day moving average of $159.07 and a two-hundred day moving average of $144.04. The company has a market cap of $209.06 billion, a PE ratio of 56.86, a P/E/G ratio of 2.47 and a beta of 1.60.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating 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 firm had revenue of $2.71 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $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. On average, research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new stake in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Main Street Group LTD bought a new position in Arista Networks during the first quarter valued at $26,000. Sankala Group LLC purchased a new position in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth about $27,000. Prosperity Bancshares Inc purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. Finally, Knuff & Co LLC bought a new position in Arista Networks during the third quarter valued at $29,000. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.