Heritage Oak Wealth Advisors LLC Reduces Stock Holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Heritage Oak Wealth Advisors LLC lessened its stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 4.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 3,680 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 180 shares during the quarter. Heritage Oak Wealth Advisors LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $218,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. State Street Corp grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $5,075,320,000 after acquiring an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 2.1% during the 3rd 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 in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its position 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 purchasing an additional 216,632 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently weighed in on the company. BNP Paribas raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Melius raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $66.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $66.53.

Cisco Systems Trading Down 0.3 %

Cisco Systems stock opened at $64.08 on Thursday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $66.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The stock has a market capitalization of $254.93 billion, a PE ratio of 27.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.84. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $61.00 and a 200-day simple moving average of $56.61.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 net margin of 16.96% and a return on equity of 26.08%. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be issued a $0.41 dividend. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.56%. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is presently 71.62%.

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

Insider Transactions at Cisco Systems

In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.37, for a total value of $760,080.96. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 200,191 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,886,294.67. This trade represents a 5.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 736,120 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. This trade represents a 4.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 74,848 shares of company stock valued at $4,767,206 in the last quarter. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

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.