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

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s stock price gapped up prior to trading on Friday following a stronger than expected earnings report. 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 trading hands.

The technology company reported $0.82 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.75 by $0.07. The business had revenue of $2.49 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 was up 28.9% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.66 EPS.

More 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.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have commented on ANET. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and issued a $178.00 price target (up from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday. Piper Sandler reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $175.00 target price (up previously from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday. Needham & Company LLC upped their target price on shares of Arista Networks from $165.00 to $185.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Friday. Barclays restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $184.00 price target (up from $183.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on shares of Arista Networks from $175.00 to $185.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Friday. Eighteen research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $175.41.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Arista Networks news, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 24,042 shares of Arista Networks stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.55, for a total transaction of $2,994,431.10. Following the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 9,917 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,235,162.35. The trade was a 70.80% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, insider Kenneth Duda sold 30,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, December 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $123.16, for a total value of $3,694,800.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 12,976 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,598,124.16. The trade was a 69.81% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 216,464 shares of company stock worth $27,553,548 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in ANET. Bare Financial Services Inc boosted its holdings in shares of Arista Networks by 2,118.2% during the second quarter. Bare Financial Services Inc now owns 244 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 233 shares during the period. Board of the Pension Protection Fund bought a new position in shares of Arista Networks during the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. Knuff & Co LLC acquired a new stake in Arista Networks during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $29,000. AdvisorNet Financial Inc lifted its holdings in Arista Networks by 56.7% during the 3rd quarter. AdvisorNet Financial Inc now owns 199 shares of the technology company’s stock worth $29,000 after purchasing an additional 72 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Ameliora Wealth Management Ltd. bought a new stake in Arista Networks in the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. 82.47% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $133.05 and a 200 day simple moving average of $136.87. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 51.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 1.42.

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.