GDS Wealth Management Buys Shares of 3,471 Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

GDS Wealth Management bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm bought 3,471 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $205,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently modified their holdings of the company. West Financial Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% during the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the period. Highline Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 76.7% during the fourth quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 260 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter valued at $40,000. Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new position in Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter worth $49,000. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP bought a new position in Cisco Systems during the 3rd quarter worth about $51,000. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 0.5 %

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $61.34 on Wednesday. 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 firm has a 50-day moving average of $59.49 and a 200-day moving average of $54.67. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $62.31. The stock has a market cap of $244.30 billion, a PE ratio of 26.33, a PEG ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results 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 during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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 for the quarter was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $0.98 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced 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 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $9,873,562.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. This trade represents a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 86,351 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $4,964,318.99. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 365,314 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,001,901.86. This represents a 19.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

CSCO has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price target on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Barclays upped their target price on Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $62.72.

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.