Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Upgraded at StockNews.com

StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Thursday morning.

Several other research analysts have also commented on CSCO. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Citigroup lifted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Finally, Barclays upped their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

NASDAQ:CSCO traded down $0.55 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $57.37. 11,581,616 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 19,068,664. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $54.00 and a 200 day moving average price of $49.69. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. Cisco Systems has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $59.38. The company has a market cap of $228.95 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $13.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.62% and a net margin of 17.73%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.01 EPS. Sell-side analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.79%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 22,309 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $1,115,450.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 293,184 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,659,200. The trade was a 7.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 8,270 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.33, for a total value of $416,229.10. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 135,544 shares in the company, valued at $6,821,929.52. This represents a 5.75 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 35,924 shares of company stock valued at $1,798,131 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cisco Systems

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 59.3% during the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 775,559 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $36,847,000 after purchasing an additional 288,775 shares during the last quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI grew its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 24.4% during the 2nd quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 264,647 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $12,573,000 after purchasing an additional 51,924 shares in the last quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.9% in the third quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI now owns 1,658,417 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $88,261,000 after purchasing an additional 162,544 shares during the period. Quintet Private Bank Europe S.A. raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 17.0% in the 3rd quarter. Quintet Private Bank Europe S.A. now owns 635,667 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $33,830,000 after buying an additional 92,179 shares in the last quarter. Finally, IRON Financial LLC bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at about $856,000. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol based networking and other products related to the communications and information technology industry in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, Japan, and China. The company also offers switching portfolio encompasses campus switching as well as data center switching; enterprise routing portfolio interconnects public and private wireline and mobile networks, delivering highly secure, and reliable connectivity to campus, data center and branch networks; wireless products include wireless access points and controllers; and compute portfolio including the cisco unified computing system, hyperflex, and software management capabilities, which combine computing, networking, and storage infrastructure management and virtualization.