Strategic Blueprint LLC Trims Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Strategic Blueprint LLC trimmed its holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 5.5% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The fund owned 20,224 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 1,169 shares during the period. Strategic Blueprint LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,197,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also made changes to their positions in the business. State Street Corp raised its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after buying an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased 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 acquiring an additional 1,262,017 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased 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 acquiring an additional 1,677,383 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased 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 acquiring an additional 5,885,879 shares during the period. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB increased 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 acquiring an additional 216,632 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total value of $291,542.13. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 51,931 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 3,042 shares of the stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.19, for a total transaction of $180,055.98. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 207,798 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,299,563.62. The trade was a 1.44 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

CSCO has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday. Bank of America boosted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of CSCO opened at $59.55 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.88. The company has a market capitalization of $237.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.56, a PEG ratio of 4.59 and a beta of 0.84. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $59.30 and its 200 day simple moving average is $54.32. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $62.31.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts predict that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was 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.