Essex Financial Services Inc. Grows Position in Arista Networks, Inc. $ANET

Essex Financial Services Inc. lifted its stake in Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) by 195.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 7,639 shares of the technology company’s stock after buying an additional 5,055 shares during the quarter. Essex Financial Services Inc.’s holdings in Arista Networks were worth $1,001,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors also recently bought and sold shares of ANET. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the fourth quarter worth $1,558,563,000. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership increased its position in Arista Networks by 82.5% during the third quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 9,587,115 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $1,396,939,000 after acquiring an additional 4,332,659 shares during the last quarter. M&T Bank Corp increased its position in Arista Networks by 3,182.7% during the fourth quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 4,012,373 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $525,741,000 after acquiring an additional 3,890,146 shares during the last quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA increased its position in Arista Networks by 310.6% during the fourth quarter. Pictet Asset Management Holding SA now owns 2,280,122 shares of the technology company’s stock valued at $298,868,000 after acquiring an additional 1,724,758 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Life Cycle Investment Partners Ltd bought a new position in Arista Networks during the fourth quarter valued at $164,907,000. Institutional investors own 82.47% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research analysts have weighed in on the stock. Citigroup cut their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $176.00 to $173.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Truist Financial set a $175.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Morgan Stanley reiterated an “overweight” rating and set a $180.00 price objective on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Susquehanna upgraded shares of Arista Networks to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 1st. Finally, TD Cowen reiterated a “buy” rating and set a $200.00 price objective (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, nineteen have issued a Buy rating and two have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $185.72.

Arista Networks Price Performance

NYSE:ANET opened at $170.91 on Tuesday. Arista Networks, Inc. has a 1-year low of $85.58 and a 1-year high of $179.80. The company has a 50-day moving average of $148.22 and a 200 day moving average of $137.86. The firm has a market cap of $215.20 billion, a PE ratio of 58.53, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.46 and a beta of 1.67.

Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, May 5th. The technology company reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.81 by $0.06. Arista Networks had a net margin of 38.32% and a return on equity of 30.10%. The company had revenue of $2.71 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.62 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.65 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 35.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Arista Networks has set its Q2 2026 guidance at 0.880-0.880 EPS. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Arista Networks, Inc. will post 3.27 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Arista Networks

In related news, major shareholder Andreas Bechtolsheim sold 220,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, May 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $156.86, for a total transaction of $34,509,200.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 182,803,048 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $28,674,486,109.28. This trade represents a 0.12% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 32,000 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, March 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $134.14, for a total transaction of $4,292,480.00. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,740,600.64. The trade was a 71.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders have sold a total of 1,935,142 shares of company stock valued at $313,589,223 over the last ninety days. 2.70% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

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.