Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) Stock Price Up 4.7% Following Better-Than-Expected Earnings

Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET)’s share price was up 4.7% during trading on Friday after the company announced better than expected quarterly earnings. The stock traded as high as $148.77 and last traded at $141.4550. Approximately 21,796,126 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 141% from the average daily volume of 9,053,586 shares. The stock had previously closed at $135.12.

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

Key Headlines Impacting Arista Networks

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 Ratings Changes

ANET has been the subject of several research reports. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $188.00 price target (up from $165.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday. KeyCorp reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $178.00 target price (up previously from $170.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday. Piper Sandler restated an “overweight” rating and issued a $175.00 target price (up from $159.00) on shares of Arista Networks in a research note on Friday. Evercore ISI reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $200.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a research report on Friday. Finally, Morgan Stanley reissued an “overweight” rating and issued a $165.00 price target on shares of Arista Networks in a report on Friday. Eighteen analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $175.41.

Insider Transactions at Arista Networks

In other Arista Networks news, Director Charles H. Giancarlo sold 8,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, February 2nd. The stock was sold at an average price of $140.43, for a total transaction of $1,123,440.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director owned 9,784 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,373,967.12. The trade was a 44.98% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Jayshree Ullal sold 24,042 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 25th. The stock was sold at an average price of $124.55, for a total value of $2,994,431.10. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders sold 216,464 shares of company stock worth $27,553,548. Company insiders own 3.39% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Arista Networks

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

Arista Networks Stock Performance

The stock has a market capitalization of $178.13 billion, a P/E ratio of 51.25, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.28 and a beta of 1.42. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $133.05 and a 200-day simple moving average of $136.87.

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.