Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Upgraded to “Strong-Buy” at BNP Paribas Exane

BNP Paribas Exane upgraded shares of Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) to a strong-buy rating in a report issued on Wednesday,Zacks reports.

A number of other equities research analysts have also issued reports on ANET. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $250.00 price target (up from $200.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Truist Financial boosted their price objective on Arista Networks from $175.00 to $234.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Bank of America reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $240.00 price objective (up from $200.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Weiss Ratings downgraded Arista Networks from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company reiterated an “overweight” rating and issued a $255.00 target price (up from $200.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twenty have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus target price of $235.45.

Arista Networks Price Performance

Shares of NYSE ANET opened at $185.53 on Wednesday. The company has a market cap of $234.00 billion, a P/E ratio of 58.53, a PEG ratio of 2.27 and a beta of 1.60. Arista Networks has a 1 year low of $114.52 and a 1 year high of $217.41. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $198.69 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $174.33.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The technology company reported $1.02 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.89 by $0.13. The business had revenue of $3.04 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.83 billion. Arista Networks had a return on equity of 30.65% and a net margin of 38.37%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 37.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.73 earnings per share. Arista Networks has set its Q3 2026 guidance at 1.060-1.080 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Arista Networks will post 3.79 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 130,553 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, October 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $217.10, for a total value of $28,343,056.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 4,774,691 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,036,585,416.10. The trade was a 2.66% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 300,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $198.95, for a total transaction of $59,685,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 180,543,048 shares in the company, valued at $35,919,039,399.60. This represents a 0.17% 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. Insiders have sold a total of 3,627,449 shares of company stock worth $740,784,723 over the last ninety days. 2.70% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 159.4% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 121,303,125 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $20,606,975,000 after purchasing an additional 74,541,134 shares during the period. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA raised its position in Arista Networks by 34.6% during the 2nd quarter. Massachusetts Financial Services Co. MA now owns 9,725,196 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,712,788,000 after purchasing an additional 2,497,275 shares in the last quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Arista Networks by 199.0% during the 2nd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,630,196 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,635,978,000 after purchasing an additional 6,409,612 shares in the last quarter. Deutsche Bank AG lifted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 4.3% in the 2nd quarter. Deutsche Bank AG now owns 9,357,496 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,589,651,000 after buying an additional 388,354 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 5.9% in the 2nd quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 8,440,963 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $1,433,951,000 after buying an additional 470,451 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Company Profile

Arista Networks, Inc develops and sells cloud networking solutions for data centers, campus environments and high-performance computing applications. Its products include Ethernet switches, routers, wireless access points and related networking equipment designed to support cloud computing, artificial intelligence, enterprise and service-provider networks.

The company’s software portfolio includes Arista EOS, its network operating system, and CloudVision, a platform that helps customers manage, automate and monitor network infrastructure.