PKS Advisory Services LLC Buys Shares of 9,574 Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

PKS Advisory Services LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 9,574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $567,000.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Mainstream Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at $132,000. Morse Asset Management Inc acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter valued at about $798,000. HighVista Strategies LLC purchased a new position in Cisco Systems during the 3rd quarter valued at about $1,698,000. GAMMA Investing LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems by 13.1% during the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 93,357 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,527,000 after acquiring an additional 10,813 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Proficio Capital Partners LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems by 76.4% during the fourth quarter. Proficio Capital Partners LLC now owns 16,947 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,003,000 after acquiring an additional 7,338 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total value of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 736,120 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. This represents a 4.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 2,065 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.70, for a total transaction of $125,345.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 191,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,604,868.80. The trade was a 1.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 66,547 shares of company stock worth $4,275,553 over the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of brokerages have recently weighed in on CSCO. BNP Paribas raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price objective for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. StockNews.com cut Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Citigroup reiterated an “overweight” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. Finally, Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Seven investment 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’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $66.63.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 0.0 %

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $60.99 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $62.03 and a 200-day simple moving average of $58.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $242.64 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.63, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.79. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $66.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.87.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings data 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%. Equities analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that allows the company to buyback $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network equipment provider to repurchase up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback programs are generally a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be given a $0.41 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. This is a positive change from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.69%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 71.62%.

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.