Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Upgraded at Melius

Melius upgraded shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report issued on Monday morning, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has $73.00 price target on the network equipment provider’s stock, up from their previous price target of $66.00.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on CSCO. Evercore ISI boosted 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. Bank of America boosted their price target on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group raised their price objective 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. Piper Sandler boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.28.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Cisco Systems stock opened at $59.20 on Monday. The firm has a market cap of $235.78 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.41, a P/E/G ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $58.51 and its 200 day moving average is $52.97. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.80. Cisco Systems has a one year low of $44.50 and a one year high of $60.23.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 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 for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.78 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.98 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.70%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 21,230 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.07, for a total value of $1,211,596.10. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 213,834 shares in the company, valued at $12,203,506.38. The trade was a 9.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,059,857.14. This represents a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cisco Systems

Several institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of CSCO. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp lifted its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 59.3% during the 2nd quarter. BRITISH COLUMBIA INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT Corp now owns 775,559 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $36,847,000 after buying an additional 288,775 shares during the last quarter. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth about $798,000. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 24.4% in the second quarter. Citizens Financial Group Inc. RI now owns 264,647 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $12,573,000 after purchasing an additional 51,924 shares in the last quarter. HighVista Strategies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at approximately $1,698,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 13.1% during the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 93,357 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $5,527,000 after buying an additional 10,813 shares in the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

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.