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Stocks Tumble After Stronger-Than-Expected Jobs Data

The stock market dropped on Friday after December jobs data exceeded economists’ expectations. U.S. payrolls grew by 256,000 during the month, beating Dow Jones’ estimate of 155,000. This made investors believe that the Federal Reserve would likely keep interest rates higher for an extended period.

Overall, S&P 500 fell 1.5% to 5,827, while NASDAQ declined 1.6% to 19,162.

Chart of the Day

Here is the one-year chart of Arista Networks (ANET) as of December 11, 2024, when the stock was at $107.

In last quarter’s earnings call, Arista Networks showcased strong momentum of its “Arista 2.0” strategy, fueled by continued investments in AI infrastructure and advanced networking. Management stated that it is providing the broadest set of Ethernet products for AI networks.

“Arista 2.0” strategy aims to position the company as a leader in data-driven networking, focusing on supporting AI, machine learning, and next-gen datacenters for mission-critical transactions. A key driver was the ramp-up of its Etherlink AI platforms, launched in 2024, featuring a portfolio of 800-gig Ethernet products designed to accelerate the industry’s migration from infiband to Ethernet. The ramp up was due to the needs of hyperscalers and AI clusters like those used by Cloud Titans – Amazon (AMZN), Meta (META), and Microsoft (MSFT).

ANET is part of our Growth Portfolio and Aggressive Growth Portfolio.

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