Susquehanna Upgrades Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) to Strong-Buy

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) was upgraded by stock analysts at Susquehanna to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Wednesday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other equities analysts have also commented on the company. Piper Sandler reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $175.00 price objective (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $178.00 target price (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Truist Financial started coverage on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Tuesday. They issued a “buy” rating and a $161.00 price target for the company. The Goldman Sachs Group reissued 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. Finally, Weiss Ratings restated a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday, March 27th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, eighteen have issued a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $175.61.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

ANET stock opened at $126.71 on Wednesday. Arista Networks has a fifty-two week low of $59.43 and a fifty-two week high of $164.94. The company has a market capitalization of $159.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 45.91, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.21 and a beta of 1.48. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $134.83 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $136.24.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 12th. The technology company reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.07. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.37% and a net margin of 38.99%.The company had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.38 billion. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.66 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that Arista Networks will post 2.2 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Arista Networks news, Director Yvonne Wassenaar sold 1,815 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $132.44, for a total value of $240,378.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 12,574 shares in the company, valued at $1,665,300.56. This represents a 12.61% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total transaction of $4,292,480.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,740,600.64. This trade represents a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. In the last three months, insiders have sold 191,632 shares of company stock valued at $25,866,004. 3.39% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of ANET. Old North State Trust LLC raised its holdings in Arista Networks by 32.9% during the fourth quarter. Old North State Trust LLC now owns 14,281 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,871,000 after acquiring an additional 3,538 shares during the period. J. Derek Lewis & Associates Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at about $297,000. Up Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth about $5,135,000. Stance Capital LLC grew its position in shares of Arista Networks by 4.4% during the fourth quarter. Stance Capital LLC now owns 10,399 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,363,000 after purchasing an additional 442 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cornerstone Planning LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth about $357,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Key Stories Impacting Arista Networks

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

• Positive Sentiment: Arista formed a multi‑source agreement (MSA) for a liquid‑cooled 12.8T XPO pluggable optics module, aimed directly at extreme AI networking bandwidth needs — a product that could drive incremental sales to hyperscale and AI customers as they deploy denser GPU/AI racks. Arista Networks (ANET) Forms MSA for Liquid-Cooled 12.8T XPO Modules
• Positive Sentiment: Susquehanna initiated coverage with a Positive rating and a $160 price target, signaling that at least one sell‑side shop sees meaningful upside based on Arista’s AI/data‑center exposure. Wall Street Backs Arista Networks as AI Data Center Play
• Positive Sentiment: Truist initiated coverage (and related reports show upgrades to strong‑buy), providing another institutional vote of confidence that can support demand from funds and brokers. Truist Securities initiates coverage of Arista Networks (ANET) with buy recommendation
• Positive Sentiment: An analyst/retail piece (The Motley Fool) named ANET a top buy for 2026, citing Arista’s data‑center networking leadership and recent easing in component pressures — a sentiment boost for retail investors. Here’s Why Arista Networks (ANET) is the First Stock I’ve Purchased in 2026
• Neutral Sentiment: d‑Matrix acquired GigaIO’s data‑center business (rack‑scale/interconnect expertise). That consolidation could alter the competitive/rack‑scale ecosystem Arista sells into; the near‑term impact on Arista’s share is unclear. d-Matrix Boosts Rack-scale AI Capabilities With Acquisition of GigaIO Data Center Business

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.