Godfrey Financial Associates Inc. Invests $1.01 Million in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Godfrey Financial Associates Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 7,696 shares of the technology company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,008,000. Arista Networks accounts for about 0.9% of Godfrey Financial Associates Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 18th largest position.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of ANET. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 82.5% during the 3rd quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,587,115 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,396,939,000 after purchasing an additional 4,332,659 shares during the period. M&T Bank Corp raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 3,182.7% during the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 4,012,373 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $525,741,000 after purchasing an additional 3,890,146 shares during the period. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA raised its position in shares of Arista Networks by 310.6% during the 4th quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 2,280,122 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $298,868,000 after purchasing an additional 1,724,758 shares during the period. Life Cycle Investment Partners Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the 4th quarter valued at $164,907,000. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. raised 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 period. 82.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Arista Networks news, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on 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 of the company’s stock, valued at $2,119,110.56. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 428,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total transaction of $75,944,320.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 5,209,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $924,321,690.08. The trade was a 7.59% 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. Insiders sold 1,706,885 shares of company stock valued at $277,584,100 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 2.70% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several brokerages have recently commented on ANET. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and set a $181.00 price objective (up from $175.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Susquehanna upgraded shares of Arista Networks to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 1st. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $190.00 to $200.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, April 16th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, Citigroup reduced their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $185.72.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE ANET opened at $154.17 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $194.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 52.80, a P/E/G ratio of 2.43 and a beta of 1.67. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $146.62 and its two-hundred day moving average is $137.31. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 52-week low of $83.86 and a 52-week high of $179.80.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The business had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.62 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.65 EPS. The business’s 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. As a group, analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.

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.