Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Upgraded at Melius Research

Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) from a hold rating to a strong-buy rating in a research report sent to investors on Monday,Zacks.com reports.

Other equities analysts have also issued research reports about the company. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. StockNews.com raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Barclays lifted their price target on Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.28.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 0.5 %

CSCO opened at $59.20 on Monday. Cisco Systems has a one year low of $44.50 and a one year high of $60.23. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $58.51 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $52.97. The firm has a market capitalization of $235.78 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.41, a PEG ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates 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 was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. Analysts predict that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.70%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $9,873,562.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at $45,059,857.14. This represents a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total transaction 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 trade represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 in the last 90 days. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp raised its stake in Cisco Systems by 59.3% in the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 775,559 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $36,847,000 after acquiring an additional 288,775 shares during the last quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth about $798,000. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI lifted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 24.4% during the second quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 264,647 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $12,573,000 after purchasing an additional 51,924 shares during the period. HighVista Strategies LLC purchased a new stake in Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,698,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in Cisco Systems by 13.1% in the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 93,357 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,527,000 after buying an additional 10,813 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% 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.