The stock market’s had a strong run in 2026, but nerves are creeping back in. Fresh conflict in the Middle East has pushed oil and gas prices higher, sparking fears that rising energy costs could reignite inflation and derail the rally.
So with markets wobbling again, what should investors actually be doing right now?
Why selling now could be a mistake
The instinct to sell everything and wait for calmer waters is understandable. But it’s usually the wrong move.
For starters, a crash isn’t guaranteed. Markets have shrugged off plenty of scares before without a meltdown ever arriving. And selling based on fear alone means potentially giving up real gains if the storm simply passes.
Even if a downturn does hit, waiting on the sidelines brings its own problem. Recoveries tend to happen fast, often before it feels safe to jump back in. And investors who sell and wait usually end up missing the best days of the bounce back.
That’s why a smarter approach is preparing rather than panicking. That means keeping a healthy pile of cash ready to deploy, and building a shortlist of brilliant businesses that look pricey today but would become bargains if the stock market does take a tumble.
With that in mind, one name firmly on my list right now is Arista Networks (NYSE:ANET).
The critical player no one’s heard of
As a quick introduction, Arista makes the networking hardware and software that let data flow smoothly and securely inside massive data centres.
As AI models get bigger, they need to shift enormous amounts of data between thousands of chips at once, and Arista’s technology is what makes that possible, solving the bottleneck problem. And its latest results show just how central it’s become to the AI build-out.
Revenue jumped 35.1% year-on-year to $2.7bn in the first quarter of 2026, while the company generated $1.7bn in operational cash flow at a 42.7% operating profit margin.
In the words of CEO Jayshree Ullal, the company is “uniquely positioned to deliver the mission-critical confluence of secure client-to-campus-to-cloud and AI networking.”
That’s a fancy way of saying Arista sits right at the centre of how AI infrastructure gets built, wired together, and kept running. But here’s the catch…
With AI infrastructure spending led by just a small number of tech giants, Arista’s revenue is highly concentrated across just a small handful of customers such as Microsoft and Meta Platforms.
That means if these businesses ever decide to stop using Arista products or simply slow their AI spend, the superb growth Arista’s enjoying today could evaporate very quickly.
