Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Price Target Raised to $72.00

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its price objective lifted by Bank of America from $60.00 to $72.00 in a report published on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Bank of America currently has a buy rating on the network equipment provider’s stock.

Several other research analysts have also recently commented on the company. Citigroup upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the stock from $52.00 to $62.00 in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. StockNews.com lowered Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday. New Street Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $57.00 target price for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Eleven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of CSCO traded down $0.61 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $57.31. 14,090,825 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 19,077,955. The stock has a market capitalization of $228.71 billion, a PE ratio of 24.82, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $54.00 and a 200 day simple moving average of $49.69. Cisco Systems has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $59.38.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $13.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.62% and a net margin of 17.73%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $1.01 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts predict that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.79%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 8,270 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, August 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.33, for a total transaction of $416,229.10. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 135,544 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,821,929.52. The trade was a 5.75 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 3,379 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.36, for a total transaction of $170,166.44. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 47,182 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,376,085.52. This trade represents a 6.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 35,924 shares of company stock valued at $1,798,131 in the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake 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 valued at $4,402,239,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,383 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.7% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 70,317,061 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,340,764,000 after purchasing an additional 1,853,598 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC increased its position in Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the third 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. Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 3.3% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 47,593,944 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,261,185,000 after purchasing an additional 1,530,468 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 22.5% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 26,409,843 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,254,739,000 after purchasing an additional 4,843,146 shares in the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.