Chesley Taft & Associates LLC Buys 532 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Chesley Taft & Associates LLC grew its position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 3.1% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 17,567 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 532 shares during the quarter. Chesley Taft & Associates LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,040,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Quarry LP lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 222.4% in the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 456 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% during the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the last quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 76.7% in the 4th quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $35,000 after purchasing an additional 260 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth approximately $40,000. Finally, Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new stake in Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $49,000. 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 analyst reports. Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. UBS Group lifted their target price on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Bank of America upped their price target on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Barclays raised their price objective on Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.50.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total value of $34,392.34. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,767 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,979,515.23. This represents a 1.14 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 1.3 %

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $61.03 on Wednesday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $61.33. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $58.94 and a 200-day moving average price of $53.70. The firm has a market cap of $243.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.19, a PEG ratio of 4.48 and a beta of 0.84.

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, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $0.98 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS 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. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.62%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 68.67%.

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.