Insider Selling: Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO Sells 31,983 Shares of Stock

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 736,120 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. The trade was a 4.16 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website.

Cisco Systems Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of CSCO stock opened at $64.67 on Friday. The company has a 50 day moving average of $60.55 and a 200-day moving average of $56.01. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $66.50. The firm has a market cap of $257.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.24, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. Sell-side analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a stock buyback program on Wednesday, February 12th that authorizes the company to buyback $15.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization authorizes the network equipment provider to buy up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.41 per share. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.54%. This is a positive change from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 69.87%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of CSCO. Norges Bank purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $3,297,905,000. FMR LLC grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 20.8% in the 4th quarter. FMR LLC now owns 77,216,513 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $4,571,218,000 after buying an additional 13,285,052 shares in the last quarter. Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $560,722,000. Alyeska Investment Group L.P. purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $413,491,000. Finally, Two Sigma Advisers LP grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 327.5% in the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 6,819,000 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $362,907,000 after buying an additional 5,223,800 shares in the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

CSCO has been the topic of several recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $69.00 to $73.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Piper Sandler raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, StockNews.com raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $66.53.

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.