Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Trading Down 4.6% – Should You Sell?

Shares of Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) traded down 4.6% during trading on Tuesday . The stock traded as low as $189.67 and last traded at $192.6130. 8,878,850 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 3% from the average session volume of 8,591,868 shares. The stock had previously closed at $201.80.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities analysts have weighed in on ANET shares. KeyCorp reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $250.00 price target (up from $200.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and set a $289.00 price objective (up from $195.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Piper Sandler reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $240.00 target price (up from $181.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. UBS Group reissued a “buy” rating and set a $259.00 price target (up from $187.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group set a $250.00 price target on Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty-two have issued a Buy rating and one has assigned a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $226.05.

Arista Networks Price Performance

The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $175.00 and its 200-day moving average price is $155.18. The company has a market cap of $242.93 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 60.76, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.06 and a beta of 1.60.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The technology company reported $1.02 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.13. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.37% and a return on equity of 30.65%. The business had revenue of $3.04 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.83 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.73 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 37.7% on a year-over-year basis. Arista Networks has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.060-1.080 EPS. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.7 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Arista Networks news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 300,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $203.30, for a total transaction of $60,990,000.00. Following the transaction, the insider owned 181,143,048 shares in the company, valued at $36,826,381,658.40. The trade was a 0.17% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 767,029 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $201.22, for a total value of $154,341,575.38. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 16,387,981 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,297,589,536.82. The trade was a 4.47% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 4,335,168 shares of company stock worth $798,637,629 over the last three months. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Brighton Jones LLC grew its holdings in Arista Networks by 321.7% during the 4th quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 7,806 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $863,000 after purchasing an additional 5,955 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter worth $202,000. Bison Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at about $251,000. Sivia Capital Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 48.4% during the second quarter. Sivia Capital Partners LLC now owns 10,723 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,097,000 after acquiring an additional 3,496 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Gamco Investors INC. ET AL grew its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 31.3% during the second quarter. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL now owns 4,193 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $429,000 after acquiring an additional 1,000 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors 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.