Bridgewater Advisors Inc. Sells 5,261 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Bridgewater Advisors Inc. cut its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 11.0% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 42,395 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 5,261 shares during the quarter. Bridgewater Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $2,515,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Quarry LP boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 222.4% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 456 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% during the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the period. Highline Wealth Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 76.7% in the fourth quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 260 shares during the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth $40,000. Finally, Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new stake in Cisco Systems during the 4th quarter valued at $49,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CSCO has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.50.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cisco Systems news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at $45,059,857.14. This trade represents a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total value of $34,392.34. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,767 shares in the company, valued at $2,979,515.23. This trade represents a 1.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

CSCO opened at $60.23 on Monday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $60.95. The company has a market cap of $239.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.85, a PEG ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The company’s 50 day moving average is $58.91 and its 200 day moving average is $53.57.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.98 earnings per share. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts predict that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.66%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is 68.67%.

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.