Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) Announces Quarterly Dividend of $0.41

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.41 per share by the network equipment provider on Wednesday, April 23rd. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.62%. This is a positive change from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40.

Cisco Systems has increased its dividend by an average of 2.6% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 12 years. Cisco Systems has a payout ratio of 40.7% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Cisco Systems to earn $3.17 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.5%.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 0.2 %

Shares of CSCO stock traded up $0.10 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $62.53. 29,257,384 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 19,037,018. The firm has a market capitalization of $249.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.84, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $63.25. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $59.84 and its 200-day moving average price is $55.31. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. As a group, equities analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have recently commented on the stock. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their target price for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Piper Sandler upped their target price on Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $62.72.

Insider Activity

In related news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total value of $291,542.13. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 51,931 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 over the last 90 days. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.