Northwest Financial Advisors Raises Stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Northwest Financial Advisors increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 10.5% during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 4,313 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 409 shares during the quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors’ holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $255,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Nilsine Partners LLC grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.8% in the 4th quarter. Nilsine Partners LLC now owns 30,124 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,783,000 after buying an additional 546 shares during the period. Lebenthal Global Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 28.6% in the fourth quarter. Lebenthal Global Advisors LLC now owns 11,212 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $664,000 after acquiring an additional 2,493 shares during the last quarter. Foundations Investment Advisors LLC grew its position in Cisco Systems by 5.4% in the fourth quarter. Foundations Investment Advisors LLC now owns 27,086 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,604,000 after acquiring an additional 1,387 shares during the period. Parsons Capital Management Inc. RI increased its stake in Cisco Systems by 59.3% during the fourth quarter. Parsons Capital Management Inc. RI now owns 177,534 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $10,510,000 after acquiring an additional 66,084 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Heartland Bank & Trust Co purchased a new stake in Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at $276,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, Director Kristina M. Johnson sold 7,500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.87, for a total value of $449,025.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 65,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,946,331.05. The trade was a 10.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the 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 sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 51,931 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently weighed in on CSCO shares. Bank of America increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Barclays upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Citigroup lifted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. Finally, Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.50.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of CSCO opened at $59.09 on Tuesday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $59.22 and a 200 day moving average price of $54.14. The stock has a market cap of $235.35 billion, a PE ratio of 25.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.59 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1-year low of $44.50 and a 1-year high of $62.31. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.80.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The firm 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 business’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $0.98 EPS. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.71%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

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.