Principle Wealth Partners LLC Sells 817 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Principle Wealth Partners LLC lowered its stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 0.4% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 193,258 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 817 shares during the quarter. Principle Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $11,441,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,075,320,000 after buying an additional 1,262,017 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.1% in 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 acquiring an additional 1,677,383 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,402,432,000 after acquiring an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB grew its position in Cisco Systems by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,107,930,000 after acquiring an additional 216,632 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts have recently commented on CSCO shares. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their target price for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Morgan Stanley raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Bank of America boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Seven 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. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $62.72.

Insider Activity

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

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $62.81 on Tuesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $63.25. The company has a fifty day moving average of $59.71 and a 200-day moving average of $55.10. The firm has a market capitalization of $250.16 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.96, a P/E/G ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. The business’s revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.55%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 68.67%.

Cisco Systems 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.