Barclays Issues Positive Forecast for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock Price

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its price target lifted by Barclays from $49.00 to $56.00 in a report published on Thursday,Benzinga reports. Barclays currently has an equal weight rating on the network equipment provider’s stock.

A number of other analysts also recently issued reports on CSCO. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Citigroup raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $52.00 to $62.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $58.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, 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 report on Thursday, August 15th. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

CSCO stock traded down $0.53 on Thursday, hitting $57.39. The company had a trading volume of 16,882,091 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,089,469. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $59.38. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $54.00 and its 200 day simple moving average is $49.69. The stock has a market cap of $229.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.82, a P/E/G ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83.

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

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

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

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In related news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 22,309 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $1,115,450.00. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 293,184 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,659,200. This represents a 7.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 3,379 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 28th. The stock was 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 $2,376,085.52. This represents a 6.68 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 35,924 shares of company stock valued at $1,798,131. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Two Sigma Advisers LP increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 327.5% during the third quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 6,819,000 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $362,907,000 after buying an additional 5,223,800 shares during the period. Taika Capital LP bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at about $730,000. Texas Capital Bank Wealth Management Services Inc bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter worth $333,000. 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 worth $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SYM FINANCIAL Corp raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 16.0% during the 3rd quarter. SYM FINANCIAL Corp now owns 8,040 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $428,000 after buying an additional 1,111 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

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.