Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET) Stock Price & How to Invest

Arista Networks designs and sells high-performance Ethernet switches and networking software for cloud, enterprise, and AI data centers. The company is the leading independent vendor of cloud-scale data center networking, with Microsoft Azure and Meta Platforms among its largest customers. Arista's switches use merchant silicon (primarily Broadcom's Tomahawk and Jericho ASICs) combined with the company's own EOS (Extensible Operating System) software, giving customers programmability and flexibility that Cisco's traditional integrated approach didn't offer.

AI data centers have become a major growth driver because they require dramatically more networking bandwidth than traditional cloud workloads. Each AI training rack connects to thousands of others at high speeds; Arista's high-end 800-gigabit Ethernet switches are positioned for this market. The numbers show it: revenue grew from about $7.0 billion in 2024 to about $9.0 billion in 2025, and trailing revenue reached roughly $10.5 billion after a second quarter of 2026 in which revenue rose about 38% year over year to around $3.0 billion and EPS of $1.02 beat the $0.89 consensus. Margins are unusually high for hardware, with a 63% gross margin and a 45% operating margin. The stock is up about 35% in 2026 and about 24% over the past year, though it has slipped about 10% over the last month from a 52-week high near $217. Founded in 2004 by Andy Bechtolsheim and Jayshree Ullal, headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Jayshree Ullal has been CEO since 2008.

Customer concentration (Microsoft and Meta). NVIDIA's push to displace Ethernet with InfiniBand for AI workloads, and to integrate networking into its complete-system offerings, is competitive pressure on the merchant-silicon Ethernet ecosystem. Valuation is a risk in its own right: at about 57x trailing earnings and over 21x sales, the stock prices in continued 30%+ growth, so any guidance that implies a slowdown in hyperscaler AI capex could compress the multiple quickly. The roughly 10% pullback over the month before the November 3 report shows how sensitive the shares are to sentiment about AI spending.

29 analysts publish price targets on ANET, averaging $245.14 against a $176.99 price as of October 2026, or +38.5%. The published targets run from $190.00 to $290.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 31 buy, 1 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 10 raises and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full ANET forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Arista Networks, Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. AI back-end networking. AI training racks require massive networking bandwidth between GPUs. The most optimistic published target, $290.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. Customer concentration (Microsoft and Meta). The most pessimistic target, $190.00, is roughly what ANET is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on ANET, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

Yes. Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET) has had 2 share splits in the last 10 years:

• 4:1 on November 18, 2021, so every share held became 4 shares.
• 4:1 on December 4, 2024, so every share held became 4 shares.

A split changes the share count and the price per share and leaves the value of a holding unchanged. Someone holding $1,000 of ANET the day before the 4:1 split held $1,000 the day after, in more shares at a proportionally lower price. Historical prices from before the date are normally shown split-adjusted, which is why a long-run chart shows no cliff.

Splits matter mainly because they make older price figures confusing to compare by hand, and because a board choosing to split is usually signalling that the price has run up far enough to feel awkward for smaller buyers. Neither is a reason to buy or sell.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Arista Networks, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$10.5 billion (Q2 2026 ~+38% YoY)
• Operating margin: ~45%
• Net income (TTM): ~$4.0 billion
• EPS (TTM / Q2 2026): ~$3.17 / $1.02 vs $0.89 expected
• P/E (trailing / forward): ~57x / ~35x
• Market cap: ~$228 billion
• Dividend yield: None (no dividend; share buybacks instead)
• Free cash flow (TTM): ~$3.9 billion
• Cash on balance sheet: ~$13.3 billion (no debt)

Arista trades at a substantial premium reflecting the AI networking story and the company's history of consistent execution, with four straight quarters of EPS beats. At about $180 the stock is roughly 57x trailing and 35x forward earnings, below the average analyst target near $245. The valuation is sensitive to customer concentration; a major customer pause in AI capex would compress the multiple significantly. Next up is the November 3, 2026 report, where consensus is about $1.08 of EPS on $3.33 billion of revenue.

If you want ANET exposure as part of a larger bundle rather than directly, these ETFs hold it meaningfully. Weights are approximate and refresh quarterly.

These are the investment theses ANET naturally fits into. Each links to a full theme guide listing every other stock that belongs and the ETFs commonly used as a passive proxy.

Other names that sit close to ANET: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get ANET exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it (SKYY, FDN), which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so ANET sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where ANET fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

Arista Networks (ANET) is a software-differentiated networking leader whose growth tracks hyperscaler AI capex through high-speed Ethernet for GPU clusters. In a portfolio it behaves as a richly valued, higher-volatility AI-networking holding, typically the networking complement to NVIDIA accelerators and Broadcom silicon, sensitive to any pause from concentrated customers Microsoft and Meta and to NVIDIA's InfiniBand push. Revenue growth accelerated to about 38% in the second quarter of 2026, and the third quarter report lands on November 3.

Whether ANET is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is ANET a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the ANET stock forecast.

For income investors, whether ANET pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does ANET pay a dividend? And to weigh ANET against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: ANET vs NVDA and ANET vs AMD.