ANET

While artificial intelligence (AI) has been the driving force behind the current bull market, AI stocks have diverged this year. Not every AI-related company is seeing its stock climb in 2026. A combination of high market expectations and a consideration of longer-term impacts of AI has weighed on many companies' share prices. One AI stock saw its price tumble after the company reported first-quarter earnings, and not because its financial results were disappointing. Rather, management's relatively rosy outlook wasn't rosy enough for investors. Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET) saw its stock price tumble by a double-digit percentage after its report. But that could be an incredible buying opportunity for long-term investors. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » The biggest challenge facing Arista Networks right now is its supply chain. It's unable to secure the chips and other components it needs for its high-end networking equipment used in AI data centers. That's put pressure on its gross margin, which management expects to persist for the time being. It also means that supply can't keep up with demand. But because Arista's customer base is highly concentrated, it can't exercise significant pricing power to boost revenue. All this is weighing on the stock, as investors were disappointed with management's full-year outlook following its first-quarter report. Management is typically very conservative at the start of the year, raising its guidance throughout the year. In its first-quarter earnings release, management raised its full-year revenue guidance by a mere $250 million, tied to AI-related revenue. It now expects sales of $11.5 billion in 2026, up 28% year over year, with $3.5 billion coming from artificial intelligence products. But Arista maintains its prominent position as the best-in-class solution for high-speed networking. Its advantage stems from its willingness to use the best components from other companies and package them with its software platform, Extensible Operating System, which provides customers with a unified interface for leading-edge hardware. There's a huge, growing demand for that solution, and while it shows up somewhat in Arista's top line, it's made it...

By Suzanne McGee and Akash Sriram PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, May 15 (Reuters) - Institutional investors took new positions in semiconductor stocks ranging from Intel to Micron during the first quarter of the year, positioning them to profit from a red-hot rally that extended into the second quarter, according to a ‌Reuters overview of filings from some 6,600 hedge funds, pension funds, college funds and others with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Nearly 5,000 of all those ‌investors that had filed their quarterly 13-F filings by late afternoon Friday reported they were buyers of one or more of 17 semiconductor firms tracked by Reuters. One of the most aggressively purchased chipmakers was Micron, whose stock has soared 154% so far this year as demand has boomed for memory chips amidst the AI buildout. A total of 2,440 institutions reported taking new positions in Micron, including Rockefeller Capital Management and Schroder Investment Management. On Micron's heels was Intel, a turnaround story whose stock has boomed 195% year to date. Tiger Global Management disclosed that it initiated a position in Intel in the first quarter, along with Neuberger Berman and MetLife Asset Management. These filings with the SEC offer a glimpse into the portfolios of large institutional investors, from hedge ‌funds to pension funds and endowments. Major institutional investors must ⁠report any changes made to their portfolio and its composition to the SEC within 45 days of the end of each calendar quarter. The data obtained by Reuters from the SEC's database reflect those firms that had submitted their filings as of late afternoon on ⁠Friday. The data does not capture changes to their portfolios they may have made since March 31. Northern Trust emerged as a big investor across the semiconductor space, initiating new positions in Intel and Micron as well as Seagate Technology and Western Digital during the first quarter. Those stocks have soared 188% and 179%, respectively, so far this year.. AI INFRASTRUCTURE Institutions also were eager buyers of other stocks whose fate is closely linked to the rollout and adoption of AI during the first three months of the year. More than 4,000 of them added ‌to their existing holdings or initiated new positions in a group of nine companies that are big players in the AI infrastructure arena, including Oracle, Arista Networks and...

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), a networking and communication technology solutions provider, closed Thursday at $115.53, up 13.41%. The stock is rallying after a blowout fiscal Q3 report, raised guidance, and AI‑driven orders. Investors are watching how sustained AI infrastructure demand supports future growth and margins. Trading volume reached 68.4 million shares, coming in about 189% higher than its three-month average of 23.7 million shares. Cisco Systems IPO'd in 1990 and has grown 149,438% since going public. The S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) added 0.77% to finish Thursday at 7,501, while the Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) advanced 0.88% to close at 26,635. Within communication equipment, peer Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) closed at $147.78, rising 5.04% as networking names react to stronger AI and data center spending signals. Cisco reported record revenue in its fiscal Q3 results last night, and investors see more to come. AI-related orders surged helping to support the AI networking narrative that has helped drive Cisco stock up 40% in the last month alone. Cisco said it has received $5.3 billion in AI-related orders year to date to help large tech companies connect and secure AI infrastructure at data centers. Management is also restructuring to direct more spending toward high growth segments like AI. It will reduce its workforce by about 4,000 jobs, or about 5% of its staff, in the process. The report strongly reinforced the AI networking narrative that has investors jumping back into Cisco Systems stock. Before you buy stock in Cisco Systems, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Cisco Systems wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $472,205!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,384,459!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 999% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 208% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual invest...

The stock market hit fresh highs as crude oil prices tumbled below $100 on Iran hopes. Earnings were mostly strong, though there were big losers too

MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. MTSI reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings of $1.09 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.07. The bottom line grew 28.2% year over year. MACOM Technology’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 1.8%. MTSI posted revenues of $289 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.4%. The top line increased 22.5% year over year. MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | MACOM Technology Solutions Holdings, Inc. Quote For the second quarter of fiscal 2026, MACOM’s adjusted gross margin was 58.5% compared with 57.5% in the prior-year quarter. Adjusted operating income came in at $80.5 million, up from $59.8 million reported in the year-ago period. As a percentage of revenues, the adjusted operating income came in at 27.8%, up 240 basis points from the year-ago quarter. Non-GAAP operating expenses were $88.6 million, up 16.8% year over year. As a percentage of revenues, non-GAAP operating expenses came in at 30.7%, contracting 140 basis points from the prior-year period. As of April 3, 2026, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaled $664.9 million, down from $768.5 million in the prior quarter. Long-term debt was $340.2 million compared with $339.9 million in the previous quarter. For the second quarter of fiscal 2026, MTSI’s net cash flows from operating activities came in at $78.7 million. In the first half of fiscal 2026, MTSI’s operating cash flow totaled $121.6 million. For the third quarter of fiscal 2026, MACOM Technology expects revenues between $331 million and $339 million. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for third-quarter fiscal 2026 revenues is pegged at $297.3 million, indicating year-over-year growth of 17.9%. The company anticipates adjusted earnings per share between $1.31 and $1.37. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings is pinned at $1.12 per share, indicating growth of 24.4% year over year. Currently, MTSI carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector are Arista Networks ANET, Advanced Energy AEIS and Amphenol APH, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Shares of Arista N...

Paycom Software, Inc. PAYC reported better-than-expected first-quarter 2026 results, wherein both top and bottom lines surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The online payroll and human resource technology provider reported non-GAAP earnings of $3.15 per share, which increased 12.5% year over year and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 7.5%. Paycom’s earnings beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, while missing once, the average surprise being 5.7%. Revenues totaled $571.9 million, which rose 7.8% from the year-ago quarter and exceeded the consensus estimate of $565 million by 1.2%. Paycom Software, Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Paycom Software, Inc. Quote Paycom’s Recurring revenues (representing 95.1% of the total revenues) improved 8.8% to $544 million in the first quarter. Our estimate for the company’s Recurring revenues was pegged at $538.2 million. Paycom’s revenues from the Implementation and Other segment decreased to $27.8 million from $30.5 million in the year-ago quarter and contributed 4.9% to total sales. Our estimate for the segment’s revenues was pegged at $27.7 million. Adjusted gross profits increased 8.4% from the year-ago period to $486.7 million. The adjusted gross margin expanded 50 basis points (bps) on a year-over-year basis to 85.1%. Paycom’s adjusted EBITDA rose 8.8% year over year to $275.4 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 50 basis points to 48.2%. Paycom exited the first quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $153.9 million compared with $370 million recorded in the previous quarter. The company had long-term debt of $675 million as of March 31, 2026. In the first quarter of 2026, PAYC generated operating cash flow of approximately $213.8 million, paid out $17.7 million in dividends and bought back $1.06 billion worth of its common stock. The board also approved a new $2 billion buyback authorization. Earlier on May 4, Paycom declared its upcoming quarterly dividend of 37.5 cents per share, payable on May 26, 2026. Following the first-quarter performance, management reaffirmed full-year guidance ranges. For 2026, Paycom continues to expect total revenues of $2.175-$2.195 billion, implying year-over-year growth of 6-7%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate is pegged at $2.19 billion, indicating year-over-year growth of 6.8%. The company projects recurring revenues to grow 7-...

The New York Times Company’s NYT first-quarter 2026 results surpassed expectations, driven by strong growth in digital subscriptions and a sharp increase in digital advertising revenues. Adjusted earnings were 61 cents per share, up 48.8% year over year and above the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 49 cents by 24.5%. Quarterly revenues rose 12% from the year-ago period to $712.2 million and topped the consensus mark of $694.5 million by about 2.6%. The quarter reflected continued momentum in the company’s subscription-led strategy, improving monetization, strong advertiser demand and expanding engagement across its diversified digital ecosystem. NYT added approximately 310,000 net digital-only subscribers in the quarter compared with the end of the fourth quarter of 2025. The New York Times Company’s digital-only average revenue per user (ARPU) increased 2.4% year over year to $9.77. The improvement was primarily driven by subscribers transitioning from promotional pricing to higher-priced plans and pricing increases on certain tenured subscribers. Total subscription revenues increased 11.3% year over year to $516.9 million in the quarter under review. Subscription revenues from digital-only products rose 16.1% to $389 million, benefiting from higher digital-only subscribers and improved ARPU. However, print subscription revenues declined 1.1% to $127.8 million due to softness in home-delivery and single-copy revenues. The company ended the quarter with 13.08 million total subscribers across its print and digital products, including 12.52 million digital-only subscribers. Digital-only subscribers increased by approximately 1.46 million year over year. Management remains optimistic about subscription growth trends. For the second quarter of 2026, NYT expects digital-only subscription revenues to increase 14-17%, while total subscription revenues are projected to rise 10-12%. The New York Times Company price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | The New York Times Company Quote Total advertising revenues rose 17.3% year over year to $126.8 million in the quarter. Digital advertising revenues surged 31.6% to $93.3 million, significantly exceeding management’s guidance range, fueled by strong marketer demand and growth in advertising supply. Print advertising revenues declined 9.8% to $33.6 million. The New York Times Company highlighted continued strength in advertising c...

Arista beat Q1 guidance with revenue of $2.71 billion (up 35.1% YoY) and raised its 2026 outlook to $11.5 billion in revenue while lifting its AI sales target to $3.5 billion. Management flagged industry‑wide, multi‑year supply shortages (wafers, silicon, optics, memory) and said it will accept higher procurement costs and margin trade‑offs to assure supply; purchase commitments rose to $8.9 billion and inventory to $2.38 billion. Arista highlighted strong AI and switching momentum — claiming #1 share in >10 Gb switching, more than 100 customers in 800G deployments, and outlined scale‑up, scale‑out and scale‑across AI fabric use cases as new product ramps continue. Interested in Arista Networks, Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. 5 AI Infrastructure Stocks Smart Money Is Buying Before the Next Surge Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET) reported fiscal first-quarter 2026 results for the period ended March 31, 2026, with management pointing to continued momentum in cloud, AI networking, and enterprise, while also flagging supply constraints and related cost pressures that could weigh on margins. Chief Financial Officer Chantelle Breithaupt said total revenue in Q1 was $2.71 billion, up 35.1% year-over-year and above the company’s guidance of $2.6 billion. Breithaupt said growth occurred “across the customer sectors,” led by “our AI and specialty providers customers within the quarter.” → Roblox Stock Slides to New Low as Safety Changes Weigh on Outlook These 3 ETFs Are Suitable for Ultra-Bearish Investors International revenue was $418.9 million, or 15.5% of total revenue, down from 21.2% in the prior quarter. Breithaupt attributed the sequential decline primarily to “Americas-based sales to our large global customers.” On profitability, Arista posted a 62.4% gross margin, within its guided range of 62%–63% but down from 63.4% in Q4. Breithaupt said the quarter-over-quarter decrease was due to “the lower mix of sales to our enterprise customers in the quarter.” In response to a margin question later in the call, she said the “primary driver is mix of the customer segments,” noting that larger customers carry lower gross margin accretion, while other factors such as “tariffs or the memory cost or the silicon cost” can be secondary influences depending on the quarter. → The Real SpaceX Play: 5 Chip Stocks Powering the IPO Before It Launches Can ‘Year of Refresh’...

Arista Networks (ANET) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.87 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.81 per share. This compares to earnings of $0.65 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +7.74%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this cloud networking company would post earnings of $0.75 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.82, delivering a surprise of +9.33%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times. Arista Networks, which belongs to the Zacks Internet - Software industry, posted revenues of $2.71 billion for the quarter ended March 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 3.48%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $2 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Arista Networks shares have added about 31.7% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 5.2%. While Arista Networks has outperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Arista Networks was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks...

Image source: The Motley Fool. Tuesday, May 5, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. ET Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer — Jayshree Ullal Chief Financial Officer — Chantelle Breithaupt Chief Architect — Andy Bechtolsheim Co-President — Todd Nightingale Co-President and Chief Technology Officer — Kenneth Duda Vice President, Corporate Communications — Rudolph Araujo Rudolph Araujo: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me on today's call are Jayshree Ullal, Arista Networks, Inc. Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer, and Chantelle Breithaupt, Arista's Chief Financial Officer. This afternoon, Arista Networks, Inc. issued a press release announcing its fiscal first quarter results for the period ending 03/31/2026. If you want a copy of this release, you can find it on our website. During the course of this conference call, Arista Networks, Inc. management will make forward-looking statements, including those relating to our financial outlook for the second quarter of the 2026 fiscal year, longer-term business model and financial outlooks for 2026 and beyond, our total addressable market and strategy by addressing these market opportunities, including AI, inventory management, lead times, and product innovation, which are subject to the risks and uncertainties that we discussed in detail in our documents filed with the SEC, specifically in our most recent Form 10-Q and Form 10-K, and which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these statements. These forward-looking statements apply as of today and you should not rely on them as representing our views in the future. We undertake no obligation to update these statements after this call. This analysis of our Q1 results and our guidance for Q2 2026 is based on non-GAAP and excludes stock-based compensation expense, intangible asset amortization, gains and losses on strategic investments, and income tax effect of these non-GAAP exclusions, including the recognition of direct access tax benefits associated with stock-based awards. A full reconciliation of our selected GAAP to non-GAAP results is provided in our earnings release. With that, I will turn the call over to Jayshree. Jayshree Ullal: Thank you, Rudy. Welcome everyone to our first quarter 2026 earnings call. Arista Networks, Inc. has experienced significant velocity in all our sectors in Q1 and we are now comma...

As we enter the next phase of artificial intelligence (AI), investors are increasingly looking to data centers as a proxy for AI adoption. Furthermore, companies that supply key components to data centers and the servers they power are being carefully scrutinized for insight into where AI goes from here. One such company is Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET), which supplies cutting-edge Ethernet switches, routers, and other networking hardware that are crucial to data center operations. Its position has fueled strong gains, with the stock rising 87% over the past year and 34% over the past month alone. Investors were watching closely when the company delivered its quarterly financial report, and while there was plenty to like, the stock plunged in the wake of its robust results. Here's why. For the first quarter, Arista generated revenue of $2.7 billion, up 35% year over year and 9% quarter over quarter. This drove adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.87, up 32%. For context, analysts' consensus estimates were calling for revenue of $2.62 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.81, so the results sailed past Wall Street's expectations. Chair and CEO Jayshree Ullal hailed the quarter, saying "Arista is off to a strong start in Q1 2026, with both our results and our industry-leading net promoter score," she said. "We are uniquely positioned to deliver the mission-critical confluence of secure client-to-campus-to-cloud and AI networking." For context, the Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking, "How likely are you to recommend the company to a friend or colleague?" A score above 50 is excellent, and above 80 is considered world-class -- so Arista's NPS of 89, which translates to a customer approval rating of 94%. Arista highlighted a number of growth drivers that will fuel its progress over the coming months and years. One of the challenges facing modern data centers is that existing industry-standard optics are limited in the bandwidth they can handle, pushing data centers to their limits. Earlier this year, Arista -- along with a consortium of industry partners -- unveiled eXtra-dense Pluggable Optics (XPO), high-density, liquid-cooled optics specifically designed to meet the needs of AI data centers. These next-generation optics deliver 8 times the bandwidth of their predecessor while preserving the convenience of plug-and-play. Ar...

Logitech International S.A. LOGI reported fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 non-GAAP earnings of $1.13 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.7%. The bottom line increased 22% on a year-over-year basis. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, LOGI reported revenues of $1.09 billion, which surpassed the consensus mark by 0.9%. Compared with the year-ago quarter, the top line increased 7% on a reported basis and 3% on a constant currency basis. Revenues from Keyboards & Combos rose 2% year over year to $224.6 million. Revenues from the Pointing Devices category grew 8% to $200.9 million, while Webcams decreased 2% to $76.2 million. Our model estimates for Keyboards & Combos, Pointing Devices and Webcams categories were pegged at $239 million, $206.3 million and $84.1 million, respectively. Logitech International S.A. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Logitech International S.A. Quote Gaming revenues increased 12% year over year to $292.3 million, and Video Collaboration sales rose 13% to $161.4 million. Our model estimates for Gaming and Video Collaboration revenues were pegged at $272.8 million and $152.2 million, respectively. Revenues from the Headsets product category increased 5% to $44.9 million, while Other categories’ sales plunged 6% to $18.9 million. Tablet Accessories sales increased 14% to $66.3 million. Our model estimates for Headsets, Tablet Accessories and Other categories were pegged at $42.8 million, $65.5 million and $19.8 million, respectively. The non-GAAP gross profit increased 10.8% year over year to approximately $486.7 million. The non-GAAP gross margin expanded 130 basis points (bps) from the prior-year quarter to 44.8%. Non-GAAP operating expenses increased 4.6% year over year to approximately $320 million. As a percentage of revenues, non-GAAP operating expenses contracted 80 bps to 21.6%. Non-GAAP operating income increased 24.5% to $166.6 million from $133.5 million reported in the year-ago quarter. The operating margin expanded 210 basis points to 15.3%. As of March 31, 2026, LOGI’s cash and cash equivalents were $1.74 billion, down from the previous quarter’s $1.82 billion. The company generated $203 million in cash from operational activities in the fourth quarter and $1.04 billion in fiscal 2026. The company returned $280 million of cash to its shareholders through share repurchases during the fourth quarter. In fis...