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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-08-23): Designation Watch · Gem Score -3 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality 85 · Value -75 · Sentiment 49 (timing only, not weighted) · Composite fair value $46.79 vs $171.02 at analysis
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profile-header/price-overview— company profile, live quote, market capextended-analysis— the core: three AI lens reads with findings, scores, and the analyst memofuture-predictions— our forward price-band predictionsmarket-narrative/ai-findings/gpt-critique— narrative context, cross-model findings, and an adversarial critique of our own analysis (near the end of the document)- Members-only sections (render as login gates for anonymous readers):
price-history,income-trend,key-metrics,financials(statement tables),insider-trading. The analysis above is public; the raw data tables require a free account.
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any ticker resolves at delvantic.com/stock/TICKER ·
raw inputs are public-company filings and market data (via licensed data feeds);
every model, score, lens read, and prediction on this page is Delvantic's own analysis.
Arista Networks, Inc.
ANET NYSEArista Networks, Inc. is a technology company that develops and sells cloud networking solutions for large-scale data centers, enterprise campuses, and carrier environments worldwide. The company focuses on high-performance Ethernet switching and routing platforms, underpinned by its Extensible Operating System (EOS), a single-image network operating system designed for programmability, automation, and reliability. Arista Networks, Inc. offers a portfolio that spans core data center switches, cognitive adjacency products, and network software and services, including telemetry, analytics, and automation tools that support modern cloud architectures. Its solutions are widely used by cloud service providers, internet companies, financial institutions, media organizations, and telecommunications operators to build scalable, low-latency networks. The company delivers its products and services through channel partners, systems integrators, and direct sales. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Arista Networks, Inc. plays a significant role in enabling cloud networking and high-speed connectivity across global digital infrastructure.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 2.75
Total Equity: $12.37B
Shares: 1,275,700,000
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $1.96B
EBITDA: $3.93B
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $1.96B
Revenue: $9.01B
Revenue: $9.01B
Revenue: $9.01B
Total Equity: $12.37B
Tax Rate: 17.4%
Equity: $12.37B
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $1.96B
Current Liabilities: $5.38B
Long-Term Debt: $0.00
Total Debt: $0.00
Total Equity: $12.37B
Shares: 1,275,700,000
Shares: 1,275,700,000
CapEx: -$119.50M
Shares: 1,275,700,000
Stock Price: $171.02
Net Income: $3.51B
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 9:32pm (23d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $2.9B | $4.4B | $5.9B | $7.0B | $9.0B |
| Cost of Revenue | $1.1B | $1.7B | $2.2B | $2.5B | $3.2B |
| Gross Profit | $1.9B | $2.7B | $3.6B | $4.5B | $5.8B |
| Operating Expenses | $956.0M | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.9B |
| Operating Income | $924.7M | $1.5B | $2.3B | $2.9B | $3.9B |
| Net Income | $840.9M | $1.4B | $2.1B | $2.9B | $3.5B |
| EBITDA | $975.1M | $1.6B | $2.3B | $3.0B | $3.9B |
| EPS | $2.74 | $4.41 | $6.75 | $2.27 | $2.79 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $2.63 | $4.27 | $6.58 | $2.23 | $2.75 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 8:30pm (23d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $620.8M | $671.7M | $1.9B | $2.8B | $2.0B |
| Total Current Assets | $4.8B | $5.6B | $8.4B | $11.9B | $16.4B |
| Total Assets | $5.7B | $6.8B | $9.9B | $14.0B | $19.4B |
| Current Liabilities | $1.1B | $1.3B | $1.9B | $2.7B | $5.4B |
| Long-Term Debt | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total Liabilities | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.7B | $4.0B | $7.1B |
| Total Equity | $4.0B | $4.9B | $7.2B | $10.0B | $12.4B |
| Retained Earnings | $2.5B | $3.1B | $5.1B | $7.5B | $9.4B |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 9:32pm (23d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $1.0B | $492.8M | $2.0B | $3.7B | $4.4B |
| Capital Expenditure | -$64.7M | -$44.6M | -$34.4M | -$32.0M | -$119.5M |
| Free Cash Flow | $951.1M | $448.2M | $2.0B | $3.7B | $4.3B |
| Acquisitions (net) | $0 | -$145.1M | $1.8M | $0 | -$300.0M |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | — | — | — | — | — |
| Dividends Paid | — | — | — | — | — |
| Stock Buybacks | -$411.6M | -$670.3M | -$112.3M | -$423.6M | -$1.6B |
| Net Change in Cash | -$272.4M | $50.9M | $1.3B | $824.3M | -$798.5M |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Jul 30, 2026 9:32pm (23d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +48.6% | +33.8% | +19.5% | +28.6% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +42.3% | +35.7% | +23.7% | +28.4% |
| Operating Income Growth | +65.1% | +47.8% | +30.5% | +31.0% |
| Net Income Growth | +60.8% | +54.3% | +36.6% | +23.1% |
| EBITDA Growth | +63.0% | +46.4% | +29.2% | +30.7% |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — if the last quarter repeats
Live · as of 2026-08-19 08:30Even the bull case prices 65% below today — the ratio here measures the model-vs-market gap, not payoff odds. Another quarter like the worst recent one costs 76%.
| Case | Growth | Margin | Fair value | vs price ($171.02) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bull — recovery | +42% | 35.0% | $59.62 | -65% |
| Base — stabilizes | +28% | 35.0% | $41.24 | -76% |
| Bear — keeps slipping | +14% | 32.6% | $26.21 | -85% |
| Stress — last quarter repeats | +27% | 35.0% | $40.31 | -76% |
Narrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Claude Reading
Looking at the raw quarterly trajectory first: revenue went $1.69B→$1.81B→$1.93B→$2.00B→$2.20B→$2.31B→$2.49B→$2.71B across the last eight quarters. That's *accelerating* sequential growth, not decelerating — Q1 2026 YoY is 35.5% vs. the 28.6% "recent YoY" cited. The "decelerating" tag in Secondary Signals appears to be wrong or measuring something else (maybe QoQ percentage from a very low base). Net margins are running 37-40%, gross ~64%, ROIC 30.6%, zero debt, $4.25B FCF on $9B revenue (47% FCF margin). This is one of the highest-quality hardware businesses in public markets, full stop. The Q1 2026 print of $2.71B annualizes to ~$11B run-rate, and if the sequential pace holds even modestly, 2026 lands at $11-12B — meaning forward P/E is closer to 45x, not 62x, and forward EV/Rev closer to 18x.
Now the synthesis verdict of $42-50 fair value vs. $171 is, frankly, unserious. A DCF that produces $50 for a company earning $3.5B in NI, growing 29% at the bottom line, with zero debt and $2B cash, implies either (a) a discount rate above 15%, (b) terminal growth assumptions that ignore two more years of visible AI capex, or (c) both. At $50, ANET would trade at 14x earnings — Cisco territory — which is absurd for a business compounding earnings at 30% with 30% ROIC. The synthesis is anchoring to reversion-to-hardware-mean without pricing the actual observable trajectory. That said, the market-forces read (neutral, cycle-peak concern) and the narrative layer (4.2x premium to fundamentals, moderate durability) are directionally correct even if the magnitude is wrong. A fair value in the $110-135 range (roughly 32-38x forward earnings on $11B revenue and $4B NI) is defensible; $50 is not.
The genuine contrarian case isn't valuation multiples — it's customer concentration and cycle-timing. Meta and Microsoft together are ~40%+ of revenue in historical filings; if either pauses AI capex in late 2026 or shifts to Broadcom's Tomahawk-based whitebox designs (a real, funded threat), revenue could go flat or down 10-15% in a single quarter, and a 45x forward multiple compresses to 25x fast — that's a $95 stock overnight. The insider selling on 2026-07-20 is programmatic-looking (option exercise + coordinated sales, all same day) so I don't weight it heavily as a signal, but the *absence* of any insider buying at these levels is telling. Also worth noting: the balance sheet shows no debt but only $1.96B cash against a $12.4B equity base — where did the FCF go? Buybacks presumably, which at 24x sales is capital-destructive if the multiple compresses.
I partially dissent from the synthesis. The direction (overvalued) is right; the magnitude ($42-50) is wrong by roughly 2x. My read: fair value ~$115-130 assuming 20% revenue CAGR through 2027 and margin stability, meaning current $171 embeds ~35-45% overvaluation, not 70%. The stock is priced for the AI capex cycle to extend cleanly through 2028 with no hyperscaler defection and no margin compression from Broadcom competition — a plausible but not high-probability scenario. This is a great business at a demanding price, not a bubble. I would not short it (30% ROIC compounders with net cash rarely provide clean short entries), and I would not buy it here; I'd want $120-130 or a genuine growth stumble. The models collectively got the vibe right (overvalued, narrative-premium, cycle-peak risk) but the composite DCF number should be discarded as a numerical anchor.
GPT Reading
Arista’s business is exceptional; the stock is not. The operating data show one of the best hardware franchises in the market: revenue rose from $2.95B in 2021 to $9.01B in 2025, a little over 32% annualized, while net income climbed from $840.9M to $3.51B, and free cash flow hit $4.25B in 2025. What stands out most is not just growth, but the absurd cleanliness of the model. Gross margin was 64.1% in 2025, operating margin 42.8%, net margin 39.0%, debt is zero, and capex was only $119.5M against $4.37B of operating cash flow. Even in the latest quarter, with margins off peak, Arista still posted $2.71B of revenue and $1.02B of net income, a 37.8% net margin. That is software-like profitability in a networking hardware business, which is why simplistic “hardware multiple” comps miss the quality here.
The problem is that the current price asks investors to pay for both the quality and for an unusually long duration of elevated growth. At $215B market cap and about $1.96B of cash, the enterprise value is roughly $213B. Against 2025 revenue of $9.01B, that is 23.7x sales; against 2025 free cash flow of $4.25B, it is about 50x EV/FCF; against net income of $3.51B, the 62x P/E is directionally right. Those are not just premium multiples; they are “nothing can go wrong” multiples. Yet the quarterly trend already shows the kind of normalization that matters at this valuation. Revenue growth remains strong, but net margin has drifted from 41.5% in 4Q24 and 40.6% in 1Q25 to 37.0%-38.4% in the last three quarters before recovering slightly to 37.8% in 1Q26. Revenue grew 28.6% year over year in the latest quarter, but earnings only 23.1%, which means operating leverage is no longer expanding. That is still excellent performance, but a stock at 24x sales does not want “still excellent”; it wants sustained upside revisions.
My read is that the market is capitalizing Arista less as a best-in-class switch vendor and more as a scarce AI infrastructure toll collector. There is some truth to that. The company has earned the right to a premium because its economics are too strong to dismiss as commodity hardware. ROIC of 30.6% and ROE of 28.4% with no leverage are real signs of moat and execution. But the valuation now assumes a path where hyperscaler AI networking demand remains intense for years and margin structure stays abnormally high despite customer concentration and purchasing power. If Arista can compound revenue at 25% for another four years, it gets to roughly $22B of sales by 2029; if net margins hold near 35%, that is around $7.5B-$8B of earnings. Even then, today’s price is still over 25x those future earnings before discounting back. That is not a crazy terminal outcome, but it leaves little room for the ordinary cyclicality of data center spending.
The best argument against my caution is straightforward: Arista has repeatedly looked expensive on trailing numbers and repeatedly grown into the valuation. The business has expanded from $5.86B revenue in 2023 to $9.01B in 2025 while preserving gross margins above 64% and converting nearly all earnings to cash. Free cash flow of $4.25B on $3.51B of net income is the opposite of promotional growth. The latest quarter’s $2.71B annualizes to nearly $10.8B already, so the valuation on a forward run-rate basis is somewhat less stretched than the annual multiples suggest. A bull can also reasonably argue that if AI cluster networking is in the early innings, Arista may deserve to be valued more like a mission-critical infrastructure software platform than a cyclical box seller. I weigh that differently because even granting all of Arista’s quality, the current market cap already discounts years of that favorable interpretation.
What would change my mind is not another “good” quarter, but proof that the current premium is still too low. Specifically, I would want to see revenue sustain above 30% year-over-year through 2026 while net margin re-expands back above 40%, showing that the recent margin dip was temporary rather than the start of mix or pricing pressure. I would also want evidence in reported numbers that growth is broadening rather than being narrowly tied to a capex burst: two or three more quarters in the $2.8B-$3.0B range with operating margins holding above 43% would support a much higher normalized earnings base. Absent that, I think the shares are pricing peak optimism. This is a great company I would rather own after a material reset, somewhere closer to 35x-40x earnings, which translates more to the $105-$125 range than $171.
Grok Reading
Arista’s numbers describe an exceptional compounder executing at a rare level: revenue scaled from $2.95B in 2021 to $9.01B in 2025, with the latest quarter at $2.71B implying a ~35% year-over-year step-up from the $2.00B printed a year earlier. Net margins sit near 39% annually and free cash flow of $4.25B on that $9.01B base converts at an almost absurd rate, with only $120M of capex and zero debt against $1.96B cash and $12.4B of equity. ROIC of 30.6% and operating margins above 42% confirm this is not a story stock papering over weak unit economics—the business itself is elite. The recent quarterly sequence ($2.00B → $2.20B → $2.31B → $2.49B → $2.71B) still shows solid sequential growth, and trailing earnings power near $3.5B supports the quality claim. That is the part the quantitative models underweight when they spit out a $50 fair value: they are discounting a genuine high-ROIC franchise with multi-year AI networking tailwinds and a sticky EOS software layer that has already taken share from Cisco.
The problem is the price. At $171 and a $215B enterprise, the stock trades at 62x earnings, 24x sales, and roughly 50x free cash flow. Those multiples only work if 25–30% revenue growth and mid-to-high-30s net margins persist for the better part of a decade while the market continues to treat a switching hardware vendor like a platform monopoly. Recent net margins have already slipped from the 41% peak in late 2024 into the 37–38% range across the last three reported quarters, and the secondary signal flags decelerating quarterly revenue confidence. Insider activity on a single day in July 2026 was a wall of sales after option exercises—dozens of thousands of shares leaving with no offsetting open-market buys. A $215B capitalization against a realistic mid-cycle revenue envelope of $12–15B is pricing the bull case as the base case; any normalization of hyperscaler AI capex or multiple compression toward a still-generous 35–40x leaves the equity 30–50% lower. The narrative layer correctly identifies the 3–4x premium to a fundamentals-anchored DCF, and hardware cycles have a long history of disappointing exactly when the multiple looks most justified.
The strongest counter-argument is that Arista is not a typical hardware cycle name. Gross margins of 64%, software-like incremental economics, and architectural lock-in inside the largest GPU clusters give it a real claim to sustain 20%+ growth longer than skeptics assume. If 2026 full-year revenue clears $11.5–12B with net income holding above $4B and FCF remaining above $4.5B, the current multiple starts to look less absurd on a forward basis, and the “overvalued” verdict has been wrong on quality compounders before. Zero leverage and fortress cash conversion also mean the company can keep buying back stock or simply compound book value at 25%+ ROE without external capital, which the pure DCF snapshots undervalue. I weigh this less heavily because the deceleration signal is already visible, customer concentration among a handful of hyperscalers is structural, and the entire 62x multiple rests on the assumption that AI networking spend is secular rather than a multi-year surge that plateaus—an assumption the market has made before in networking and been wrong.
What flips the verdict is concrete: four consecutive quarters of ≥30% revenue growth with net margins re-expanding above 40%, or clear evidence that non-hyperscaler and enterprise AI networking is adding a second leg that diversifies the top line. Conversely, a print showing revenue growth slipping under 15% or net margins compressing through 35% while the multiple stays elevated would confirm the overvaluation case decisively.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
The business trajectory is exceptional. Revenue compounded from $2.95B (2021) to $9.01B (2025), roughly 3x in four years, while operating margin expanded from 31.4% to 42.8% and gross margin held above 61% throughout — classic evidence of pricing power and operating leverage rather than growth-at-any-cost. Net income grew from $841M to $3.51B; FCF grew from $951M to $4.25B, converting at 121% of net income in 2025. Earnings quality is clean: OCF/NI 1.02x, accruals -0.1% of assets, Beneish M -2.18, Altman Z 20.73 — effectively no distress or manipulation signal. Balance sheet is fortress-grade with $1.96B net cash and zero net debt against $4.25B annual FCF, so survival math is a non-issue. Two items warrant nuance. First, the 'diluted share CAGR 41.4%' flag is a stock-split artifact (317M shares in 2023 to 1.28B in 2024 is a 4-for-1 split, not real dilution); SBC at 4.9% of revenue is moderate for a tech leader, and buybacks at 213% of SBC mean the company is actually shrinking share count on a normalized basis. Second, insider selling is heavy (96 sells, $272M, zero buys), including founder-architect Bechtolsheim and Duda — this is typical for a long-appreciated tech stock but is a behavioral yellow flag worth noting rather than a quality defect. Business durability is implied by the sustained margin structure in a competitive networking market historically dominated by Cisco, suggesting a genuine technical moat with hyperscaler customers.
Verify before trusting this (6)
- Confirm the 2023-to-2024 share count jump (317M to 1.28B) is a 4-for-1 stock split, not real issuance
- Customer concentration from 10-K (Meta, Microsoft, Oracle percentages)
- Whether insider sales are 10b5-1 pre-scheduled or discretionary
- Deferred revenue and RPO trend — leading indicator of demand durability
- Inventory and purchase commitments — a networking-hardware cycle risk indicator
- Segment/AI-related backlog disclosure to gauge how much of the 2025 growth is sustainable
The e2e composite fair value of $42 and signal-adjusted $50 imply roughly 70% downside from $171. I do not take those figures literally - the EPV floor of $17 is clearly a runaway anchor for a debt-free 43%-operating-margin business, and the DCF at $47 likely under-extrapolates AI-driven data-center capex. But even if I double the signal-adjusted FV to $100 to give Arista full credit for its Fortress-grade economics and hyperscaler tailwind, the stock still trades ~70% above deserved value. On $9B revenue and ~$4.25B FCF, a $215B market cap is ~50x FCF - a multiple that already prices in years of 25%+ growth, sustained 40%+ operating margins, and no share loss to Broadcom Tomahawk merchant silicon or hyperscaler in-house designs.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Hyperscaler customer concentration trend in latest 10-Q (Microsoft/Meta % of revenue)
- AI-related backlog and 2025-2026 guidance on transcript
- Gross margin trajectory as mix shifts to 800G and beyond
- Any commentary on in-house silicon competition or Broadcom Tomahawk 5 displacement
- Share repurchase pace vs SBC dilution
The active narrative on ANET is a strong platform-monopoly story wrapped around the AI capex cycle: Arista as the irreplaceable switching fabric for hyperscaler AI buildouts, with EOS as sticky software glue. That story is intense and moderately durable, and it is doing real work on the tape - the July 21 Zero Trust Branch launch got amplified into an AI angle and analysts have been leaning into the pre-earnings setup. News flow across the AI-infra cohort (Vertiv beat, GFS/KLIC AI-packaging setups, Silicon Motion +127%) reinforces the group narrative that ANET rides. Against that, the macro tape is neutral-to-slightly-hostile: VIX 17, S&P off 2.3% from highs, 10y at 4.67%, market PE 26. With a 1.6 beta and a story-priced multiple, ANET is exactly the profile that gets marked down hardest if the tape rolls risk-off - but right now the regime is only nascent-neutral, not stress. Net, the narrative pressure clearly outweighs the mild macro drag. Momentum is strong-positive and the cult coefficient is medium, meaning holders are conviction buyers on dips. That is a tailwind until either the AI-capex story cracks or the tape turns genuinely risk-off.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- Upcoming earnings print and guide - any hyperscaler capex softness or gross margin wobble would puncture the story
- Any hyperscaler (Meta/Microsoft) commentary on in-house switching or Broadcom share shift
- 10y yield direction - a break above 4.8-5.0% would compress high-beta AI-infra multiples
- VIX behavior - a move above 20 with S&P >4% off highs would flip the tape from neutral to genuine risk-off
- Whether analyst target revisions keep drifting up into the print or start plateauing
This lens hasn't been run for this ticker yet.
When we made this prediction on Jul 31, 2026, ANET was $171.02. We expect it to be $163.00 by Jan 2027, and we consider it great value under $110.00. This is an early model (v0.6.0) — the direction is more reliable than the exact price. Made Jul 31, 2026.
Blue is our prediction, starting the day we made it. Grey is a slower route to the same place — the same destination, taking longer. Black is the actual price, so you can see how we are doing.