Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board Cuts Stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board cut its holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 81.4% during the third quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 10,340 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 45,398 shares during the quarter. Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $550,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Summit Securities Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the second quarter valued at approximately $25,000. West Financial Advisors LLC grew its position in Cisco Systems by 116.6% during the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the period. Quarry LP lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 222.4% in the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 456 shares during the period. Hobbs Group Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Cisco Systems during the second quarter worth approximately $36,000. Finally, Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 617.7% during the second quarter. Iron Horse Wealth Management LLC now owns 890 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $42,000 after purchasing an additional 766 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CSCO has been the topic of a number of research reports. New Street Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $57.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Hsbc Global Res raised Cisco Systems to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, August 16th. Tigress Financial increased their target price on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. StockNews.com raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, HSBC raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $46.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Friday, August 16th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $59.94.

Insider Transactions at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 21,230 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.07, for a total transaction of $1,211,596.10. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 213,834 shares in the company, valued at $12,203,506.38. This trade represents a 9.03 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 342,858 shares of company stock worth $19,661,157 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 0.1 %

CSCO stock opened at $57.59 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $229.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.71, a PEG ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.83. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $59.38. The company’s 50 day moving average is $54.84 and its two-hundred day moving average is $50.05. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.98 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal 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. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Cisco Systems Company Profile

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.