Insider Selling: Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) EVP Sells 3,042 Shares of Stock

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 3,042 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.19, for a total transaction of $180,055.98. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 207,798 shares in the company, valued at $12,299,563.62. The trade was a 1.44 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

CSCO stock opened at $58.62 on Friday. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $57.13 and its 200 day simple moving average is $51.36. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $60.23. The firm has a market cap of $233.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.16, a P/E/G ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.85. 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 earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.78 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the company earned $0.98 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.73%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on CSCO. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $58.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Evercore ISI upped their price target on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Tigress Financial increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $59.94.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Summit Securities Group LLC bought a new position in Cisco Systems during the 2nd quarter worth $25,000. Quarry LP boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 222.4% during the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 456 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC grew 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 acquiring an additional 309 shares during the last quarter. Hobbs Group Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the 2nd quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter valued at about $40,000. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

About Cisco Systems

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.