Axiom Financial Strategies LLC Makes New Investment in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Axiom Financial Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm purchased 3,499 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $207,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in CSCO. Stonegate Investment Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Stonegate Investment Group LLC now owns 1,539,557 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $91,142,000 after purchasing an additional 11,506 shares in the last quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.4% during the fourth quarter. Perigon Wealth Management LLC now owns 157,602 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $9,428,000 after buying an additional 3,637 shares during the last quarter. Curbstone Financial Management Corp raised its position in Cisco Systems by 0.3% in the fourth quarter. Curbstone Financial Management Corp now owns 74,000 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $4,381,000 after purchasing an additional 200 shares in the last quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems by 37.0% in the fourth quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC now owns 9,156 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $542,000 after purchasing an additional 2,474 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Griffin Asset Management Inc. raised its position in Cisco Systems by 16.2% in the fourth quarter. Griffin Asset Management Inc. now owns 9,059 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $536,000 after purchasing an additional 1,260 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have weighed in on CSCO shares. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Melius upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of CSCO stock opened at $59.25 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $235.97 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.46, a PEG ratio of 4.59 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.88. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $59.22 and a 200 day simple moving average of $54.14. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $62.31.

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

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.70%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 68.67%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

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

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.