Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) has been assigned an average rating of “Moderate Buy” from the twenty-one research firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat reports. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation, ten have given a buy recommendation and one has issued a strong buy recommendation on the company. The average 1-year target price among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $60.28.

A number of equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Tigress Financial raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Piper Sandler increased their target price on Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th.

Insider Activity

In other news, 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 value of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 783,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. This represents a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total value of $291,542.13. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 51,931 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 over the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CSCO. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 59.3% in the second quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 775,559 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $36,847,000 after buying an additional 288,775 shares during the period. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth $798,000. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI boosted its stake in Cisco Systems by 24.4% during the second quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 264,647 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $12,573,000 after acquiring an additional 51,924 shares in the last quarter. HighVista Strategies LLC acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth $1,698,000. Finally, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI increased its stake in Cisco Systems by 10.9% in the third quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI now owns 1,658,417 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $88,261,000 after purchasing an additional 162,544 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 0.6 %

Cisco Systems stock opened at $59.61 on Monday. Cisco Systems has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $60.23. The stock has a market cap of $237.41 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.58, a P/E/G ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.85. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $58.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $52.20. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

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

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.68%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) 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.