Simon Quick Advisors LLC Increases Stock Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Simon Quick Advisors LLC boosted its position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 5.3% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 21,743 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,098 shares during the quarter. Simon Quick Advisors LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,287,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. FMR LLC raised its stake in Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,402,432,000 after buying an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 327.5% during the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 6,819,000 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $362,907,000 after acquiring an additional 5,223,800 shares in the last quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 5,231.5% during the third quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 4,935,107 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $262,646,000 after purchasing an additional 4,842,542 shares during the last quarter. National Bank of Canada FI boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 79.6% in the third quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 8,971,494 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $477,463,000 after purchasing an additional 3,975,028 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp increased its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have issued reports on CSCO shares. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. StockNews.com upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $61.50.

Insider Activity

In other Cisco Systems news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred 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 sale, the chief executive officer now 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 sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 3,042 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.19, for a total transaction of $180,055.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 207,798 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,299,563.62. This represents a 1.44 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

CSCO opened at $61.03 on Wednesday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $58.94 and a 200 day moving average price of $53.70. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $61.33. The stock has a market cap of $243.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.19, a PEG ratio of 4.48 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The business had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.78 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.98 EPS. The firm’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

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 paid a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.62%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 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.