Andreas Bechtolsheim Sells 205,000 Shares of Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 205,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, May 22nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $151.74, for a total transaction of $31,106,700.00. Following the sale, the insider owned 183,023,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $27,771,917,303.52. This trade represents a 0.11% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Large shareholders that own more than 10% of a company’s stock are required to disclose their transactions with the SEC.

Andreas Bechtolsheim also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, May 26th, Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 220,000 shares of Arista Networks stock. The stock was sold at an average price of $156.86, for a total transaction of $34,509,200.00.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

Shares of ANET opened at $155.21 on Friday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $83.86 and a fifty-two week high of $179.80. The company has a market capitalization of $195.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 53.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.37 and a beta of 1.67. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $147.06 and a 200-day simple moving average of $137.46.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last posted its quarterly 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. The firm had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.62 billion. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 35.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $0.65 earnings per share. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.28 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes 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 in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.4% in the fourth 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 in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.0% in the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 37,171,766 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $4,870,618,000 after buying an additional 380,724 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in Arista Networks by 1.8% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 26,447,629 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $3,455,095,000 after buying an additional 477,625 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank purchased a new position in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter valued at about $1,558,563,000. 82.47% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently issued reports on ANET. Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $180.00 to $210.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Citigroup cut their price target on shares of Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research cut shares of Arista Networks from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Thursday, May 14th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company boosted their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday, February 13th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have given a Buy rating and two have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Buy” and an average price target of $185.72.

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.