Meridian Wealth Management LLC Grows Stock Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Meridian Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 2.9% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 21,563 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 611 shares during the quarter. Meridian Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,276,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,075,320,000 after purchasing an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.1% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 82,720,255 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $4,402,239,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,383 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.2% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,107,930,000 after purchasing an additional 216,632 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research analysts have issued reports on the company. DZ Bank upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. BNP Paribas upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $71.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 27th. Melius upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, UBS Group upped their target price on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $66.63.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 0.3 %

CSCO opened at $63.26 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The firm has a market cap of $251.67 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.62, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $66.50. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $61.39 and its 200 day simple moving average is $57.16.

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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be paid a $0.41 dividend. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.59%. This is a positive change from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.62%.

Cisco Systems declared that its board has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that permits the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network equipment provider to repurchase up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.37, for a total value of $760,080.96. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 200,191 shares in the company, valued at $12,886,294.67. This trade represents a 5.57 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total value of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 736,120 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. This trade represents a 4.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 74,848 shares of company stock valued at $4,767,206. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

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.