Morgan Stanley Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its target price boosted by research analysts at Morgan Stanley from $62.00 to $68.00 in a report issued on Tuesday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “overweight” rating on the network equipment provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price points to a potential upside of 15.82% from the stock’s current price.

A number of other research firms also recently commented on CSCO. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Barclays lifted their target price 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. Tigress Financial upped their price target on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Evercore ISI lifted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Finally, Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Ten 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. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $60.28.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $58.71 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 has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $60.23. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $57.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $51.49. The firm has a market capitalization of $233.83 billion, a P/E ratio of 24.97, a PEG ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.85.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted 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. 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 during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In related news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 86,351 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $4,964,318.99. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 365,314 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $21,001,901.86. The trade was a 19.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. This trade represents a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 in the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Legacy Wealth Management LLC MS bought a new position in Cisco Systems during the third quarter valued at about $206,000. Birmingham Capital Management Co. Inc. AL lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 9.7% during the 3rd quarter. Birmingham Capital Management Co. Inc. AL now owns 22,320 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,188,000 after purchasing an additional 1,970 shares during the period. Logan Capital Management Inc. lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the third quarter. Logan Capital Management Inc. now owns 295,303 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $15,716,000 after buying an additional 27,175 shares during the period. Retirement Systems of Alabama boosted its stake in Cisco Systems by 3.7% during the 3rd quarter. Retirement Systems of Alabama now owns 3,038,015 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $161,683,000 after acquiring an additional 109,772 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth $502,000. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.