Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Reaches New 52-Week High – Still a Buy?

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)’s stock price reached a new 52-week high during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $62.49 and last traded at $62.36, with a volume of 7932315 shares. The stock had previously closed at $61.34.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts have weighed in on CSCO shares. Citigroup increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, January 17th. BNP Paribas raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Tigress Financial upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Barclays lifted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Bank of America raised their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $59.65 and a 200-day simple moving average of $54.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The stock has a market cap of $248.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.73, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released 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 return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.98 EPS. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.57%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 21,230 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.07, for a total transaction of $1,211,596.10. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 213,834 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,203,506.38. This represents a 9.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of CSCO. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors lifted its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 5.0% in the 3rd quarter. C2P Capital Advisory Group LLC d.b.a. Prosperity Capital Advisors now owns 5,382 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $286,000 after purchasing an additional 258 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 116.6% in the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 309 shares during the period. CWM LLC boosted its position in Cisco Systems by 2.0% during the 3rd quarter. CWM LLC now owns 1,058,331 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $56,324,000 after acquiring an additional 20,621 shares in the last quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 17.5% during the 3rd quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC now owns 22,051 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,174,000 after acquiring an additional 3,284 shares during the period. Finally, Wedmont Private Capital raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 30.1% in the 3rd quarter. Wedmont Private Capital now owns 35,576 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,868,000 after acquiring an additional 8,227 shares in the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by 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.