Insider Selling: Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) EVP Sells $760,080.96 in Stock

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.37, for a total transaction of $760,080.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 200,191 shares in the company, valued at $12,886,294.67. The trade was a 5.57 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website.

Cisco Systems Trading Down 0.3 %

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $64.08 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.87. The company has a fifty day moving average of $61.00 and a 200 day moving average of $56.61. The company has a market capitalization of $254.93 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.98, a P/E/G ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $66.50.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its 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%. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems declared that its Board of Directors has approved a share repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that allows the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network equipment provider to repurchase up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed 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 is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.56%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 71.62%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have issued reports on CSCO. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Melius raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Rosenblatt Securities raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the stock from $66.00 to $80.00 in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Melius Research raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, StockNews.com cut shares of Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Saturday, February 22nd. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $66.53.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. purchased a new stake in Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Navigoe LLC bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $26,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth approximately $26,000. JDM Financial Group LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 160.4% during the 4th quarter. JDM Financial Group LLC now owns 487 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $29,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Runnymede Capital Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in Cisco Systems during the 4th quarter valued at $30,000. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.