Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Down 7.1% – Here’s What Happened

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) fell 7.1% during mid-day trading on Friday . The company traded as low as $152.19 and last traded at $154.2330. 8,929,172 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 1% from the average session volume of 8,877,337 shares. The stock had previously closed at $166.01.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have weighed in on ANET. 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. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and issued a $187.00 target price (up from $177.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research cut Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, May 14th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price target on Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $188.00 price objective (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday, February 13th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have assigned a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $185.72.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $194.21 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 52.82, a PEG ratio of 2.69 and a beta of 1.61. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $150.59 and a 200 day simple moving average of $138.71.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.62 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.65 EPS. The firm’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 anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 220,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.86, for a total value of $34,509,200.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 182,803,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $28,674,486,109.28. This represents a 0.12% decrease in their position. The sale 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 stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $177.44, for a total value of $75,944,320.00. Following the transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders sold 1,943,142 shares of company stock worth $314,941,943. Company insiders own 2.70% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Lighthouse Financial Services Inc. ADV acquired a new stake in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at $1,549,000. Bensler LLC acquired a new position in Arista Networks during the 4th quarter worth $6,350,000. QRG Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in Arista Networks by 6.4% during the 4th quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 169,613 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $22,224,000 after purchasing an additional 10,217 shares in the last quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 38.3% during the 3rd quarter. BI Asset Management Fondsmaeglerselskab A S now owns 662,139 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $96,480,000 after purchasing an additional 183,515 shares during the period. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 59.8% during the 4th 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.

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.