Pacer Advisors Inc. Lowers Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Pacer Advisors Inc. trimmed its position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 93.1% during the second quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund owned 644,708 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 8,657,235 shares during the quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $30,630,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 2.7% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 70,317,061 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,340,764,000 after purchasing an additional 1,853,598 shares during the last quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP lifted its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 7.6% during the 4th quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 47,195,836 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,384,334,000 after buying an additional 3,314,330 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 22.5% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 26,409,843 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,254,739,000 after buying an additional 4,843,146 shares during the last quarter. First Trust Advisors LP grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 12.3% in the fourth quarter. First Trust Advisors LP now owns 24,941,271 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,260,033,000 after acquiring an additional 2,723,260 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 47.1% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 18,922,422 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $955,961,000 after acquiring an additional 6,054,748 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms have weighed in on CSCO. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft boosted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. HSBC upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $46.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Friday, August 16th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. New Street Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $57.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have assigned a hold rating, eight have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $56.11.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of CSCO opened at $51.97 on Friday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $54.58. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $48.52 and its 200 day simple moving average is $48.05. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.91. The stock has a market capitalization of $209.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 17.50, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.87 and a beta of 0.83.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $13.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 19.18% and a return on equity of 27.83%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.01 earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.9 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, October 2nd will be issued a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 2nd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 3.08%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is currently 53.87%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 638 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.09, for a total transaction of $31,319.42. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 46,017 shares in the company, valued at $2,258,974.53. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. In other Cisco Systems news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 638 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.09, for a total transaction of $31,319.42. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 46,017 shares in the company, valued at $2,258,974.53. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 8,270 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.33, for a total transaction of $416,229.10. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 135,544 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,821,929.52. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 70,529 shares of company stock worth $3,509,049. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems 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.