Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Shares Gap Up on Strong Earnings

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price gapped up before the market opened on Friday following a better than expected earnings announcement. The stock had previously closed at $135.12, but opened at $145.82. Arista Networks shares last traded at $143.4130, with a volume of 5,476,734 shares changing hands.

The technology company reported $0.82 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.75 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $2.49 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $2.38 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.99% and a return on equity of 31.34%. Arista Networks’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $0.66 EPS.

Key Arista Networks News

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

• Positive Sentiment: Reported stronger-than-expected Q4 results: EPS $0.82 vs. $0.75 est., revenue $2.49B (+28.9% YoY) and record net income; company raised AI revenue targets and issued revenue guidance above Street estimates, supporting the AI-driven growth narrative. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts are lifting price targets and turning more bullish (Wells Fargo, Needham, Rosenblatt among those raising targets/ratings), giving additional analyst-driven momentum to the stock. Read More.
• Positive Sentiment: Market views Arista as outperforming peers (notably Cisco) by managing supply-chain pressures and capturing hyperscaler AI capex, which supports margin resilience and share gains. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Management said Arista is diversifying accelerator support: deployments that were ~99% Nvidia a year ago now include ~20–25% AMD — a strategic shift that increases customer options but alters vendor dynamics. Traders note this may be weighing on GPU vendor stocks while benefiting Arista’s flexibility. Read More.
• Neutral Sentiment: Unusually high options activity is signaling elevated trader interest/positioning ahead of and after earnings. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Valuation is rich (ANET trades at a high P/E), and some commentary asks whether the recent run (one-year gains) leaves less margin for error if growth slows. This could temper longer-term upside. Read More.
• Negative Sentiment: Rising component/memory costs are a sector-wide headwind; management says it’s mitigating impacts via purchase commitments, but cost pressure remains a watch item for margins. Read More.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

ANET has been the subject of several analyst reports. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating and set a $177.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday. Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and set a $165.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday. Erste Group Bank cut shares of Arista Networks from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, November 10th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “hold (c+)” rating on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Monday, December 29th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $140.00 to $165.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 10th. Eighteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Arista Networks currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $175.41.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In related news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 24,042 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of $124.55, for a total transaction of $2,994,431.10. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,235,162.35. This represents a 70.80% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $140.43, for a total value of $1,123,440.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director owned 9,784 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,373,967.12. This trade represents a 44.98% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 216,464 shares of company stock worth $27,553,548. 3.39% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Arista Networks

Hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 101,189,629 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $13,258,877,000 after buying an additional 1,188,799 shares during the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its stake in Arista Networks by 1.4% during the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 46,970,697 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $6,154,570,000 after buying an additional 628,146 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Arista Networks by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,447,629 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $3,455,095,000 after buying an additional 477,625 shares in the last quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.0% in the 2nd quarter. Cresset Asset Management LLC now owns 26,374,373 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $2,698,362,000 after acquiring an additional 263,272 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank bought a new stake in Arista Networks during the second quarter worth approximately $1,228,177,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Arista Networks Stock Up 4.7%

The business has a 50-day moving average price of $133.05 and a 200-day moving average price of $137.00. The company has a market capitalization of $178.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 51.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.39 and a beta of 1.42.

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.