Ballentine Partners LLC Boosts Holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Ballentine Partners LLC raised its stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 1.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 74,247 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,339 shares during the quarter. Ballentine Partners LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $4,395,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the stock. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.7% during 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 acquiring an additional 3,241,682 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in 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 valued at $5,075,320,000 after purchasing an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in Cisco Systems by 2.1% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 82,720,255 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $4,402,239,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,383 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 3.3% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 47,593,944 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,261,185,000 after buying an additional 1,530,468 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several research firms have issued reports on CSCO. Tigress Financial increased their target price on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Morgan Stanley increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, Citigroup boosted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Friday. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.50.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cisco Systems news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total transaction of $34,392.34. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,767 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,979,515.23. The trade was a 1.14 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 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 value 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 over the last ninety days. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 0.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $60.23 on Tuesday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $60.95. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $58.91 and its 200-day moving average price is $53.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $239.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion for 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 firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.66%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

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.