We recently published a list of 10 Best Stocks to Buy According to Billionaire Steve Cohen. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) stands against other best stocks to buy according to billionaire Steve Cohen.
Steve Cohen, a prominent figure in the world of hedge funds, is the founder of Point72 Asset Management. The firm began managing external money in 2018 following a two-year supervisory restriction imposed by insider trading accusations against Cohen’s former firm, SAC Capital. That said, Cohen’s name isn’t just known within the world of finance. After years of having a small share in the New York Mets, he spent $2.4 billion to buy the franchise in 2020. Since then, his reputation as an obsessive businessman has evolved beyond finance to Major League Baseball.
Cohen stated that the future of the US economy moving forward is uncertain, in part due to President Donald Trump’s tariff proposal. Since Trump’s inauguration, economic policy seems to have shifted from threats of import taxes on countries such as Mexico and Canada to last-minute delays when conditions were agreed upon. Meanwhile, the White House seems to have moved forward with its tariff increase on several countries, potentially sparking a tug-of-war with some of the world’s largest economies. Speaking at the FIIPRIORITY conference in Miami back in February, Cohen said the following:
“I think this is one of those moments where there’s really a lot of uncertainty and I have pretty strong views here. … Tariffs cannot be positive, I mean it’s a tax. And you can imagine tit for tat if the U.S. does something — it implements a tax on somebody, somebody else is going to perhaps raise the stakes and raise their tax back. Taxes are never positive.”
“On top of that we have slowing immigration, which means the labour force will not grow as rapidly as… over the last five years,” he said. “And in addition now you have (the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE). Wherever you lay on the DOGE issue that’s austerity, and austerity when that money’s been coursing through the economy over many years and now potentially will be reduced or stopped in many ways has got to be negative for the economy.”
Given the uncertain macroeconomic climate, the billionaire feels the stock market may see a pullback. He expects the US economy’s growth to slow to 1.5% from 2.5% in the second half of the year. The investor said he did not expect a “disaster,” but did expect a significant sell-off as market mood weakened, stating that this is “definitely a period where I think the best gains have been had, and it wouldn’t surprise me to see a significant correction.” Furthermore, Cohen is concerned that Elon Musk’s objective of utilizing DOGE to reduce government expenditure by $2 trillion may result in the largest employment cutbacks in US history. While economists do not anticipate job cuts alone to cause a recession since they are modest in comparison to the broader job market, they do have the ability to reduce GDP growth by a small amount.
Our Methodology
For this list, we sifted through Steve Cohen’s Q4 2024 portfolio, and narrowed down his firm’s top 10 holdings as of Q4 2024. Additionally, we have mentioned the hedge fund sentiment around each stock, as of Q4 2024.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).
A technician in a server room managing a large-scale network of computers.
Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET)
Point72 Asset Management’s Q4 Stake: $333.9 million
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 78
Arista Networks, Inc. (NYSE:ANET) is an American computer networking company based in Santa Clara, California. The company focuses on inventing and delivering multilayer network switches that enable software-defined networking in large-scale data centers, cloud computing, high-performance computing, and high-frequency trading settings.
On March 18, Evercore ISI maintained its Outperform rating and $130 price target for Arista Networks Inc. (NYSE:ANET), despite the recent revelation of a high-profile CEO resignation. The firm’s analysts reacted to the departure of John McCool, Chief Platform Officer and SVP of Engineering and Operations, who will step down on April 7, 2025, but will remain a senior advisor to the CEO. According to Evercore ISI, this is the third high-profile CEO to quit Arista in the previous 18 months, which may add to the gloomy view of the company. However, the firm highlighted that the departure did not change their favorable opinion of Arista.
Giverny Capital Asset Management stated the following regarding Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) in its Q4 2024 investor letter:
“I trimmed Arista Networks Inc (NYSE:ANET) as it grew beyond 10% weight in the portfolio thanks to its continued outperformance. Arista has been on a tear in January and if our clients are lucky I will leave Arista alone for a while! The market appears to see that Artificial Intelligence data centers are going to require robust investment in networking equipment, and Arista is the leader in that sector.”
Overall, ANET ranks 9th on our list of best stocks to buy according to billionaire Steve Cohen. While we acknowledge the potential for ANET as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ANET but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.
Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.