Aveo Capital Partners LLC Buys 407 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Aveo Capital Partners LLC lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 8.3% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 5,296 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 407 shares during the quarter. Aveo Capital Partners LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $314,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp grew its holdings in 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 last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,075,320,000 after acquiring an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 2.1% during the 3rd 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 acquiring an additional 1,677,383 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after acquiring an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,107,930,000 after acquiring an additional 216,632 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

CSCO has been the topic of a number of research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $69.00 to $73.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Bank of America upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Melius Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Morgan Stanley upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $68.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, December 17th. Finally, UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $66.53.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

CSCO opened at $64.87 on Friday. 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 company’s fifty day moving average price is $60.07 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $55.54. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1-year low of $44.50 and a 1-year high of $66.50. The company has a market cap of $258.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.84, a PEG ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. On average, analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be issued a $0.41 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.53%. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, February 12th that permits the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network equipment provider to buy up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s board of directors believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total value of $291,542.13. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 51,931 shares in the company, valued at $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 21,230 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 20th. The shares were 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 position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 37,239 shares of company stock worth $2,166,612 over the last quarter. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems 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.