Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Hits New 1-Year High – Here’s Why

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)’s stock price hit a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $62.49 and last traded at $62.36, with a volume of 7932315 shares. The stock had previously closed at $61.34.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several brokerages have recently commented on CSCO. Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Melius raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. BNP Paribas raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 target price for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

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 firm has a market cap of $249.42 billion, a PE ratio of 26.89, a PEG ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84. The business has a fifty day moving average of $59.52 and a 200-day moving average of $54.77.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings results 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 firm 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 business earned $0.98 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, research analysts predict 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 was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.55%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 58,188 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 $3,345,228.12. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 219,100 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,596,059. This represents a 20.98 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total value of $34,392.34. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,767 shares in the company, valued at $2,979,515.23. This trade represents a 1.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 in the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Morse Asset Management Inc purchased a new stake in Cisco Systems during the 3rd quarter valued at $798,000. HighVista Strategies LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter worth $1,698,000. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 13.1% in the 4th quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 93,357 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,527,000 after buying an additional 10,813 shares during the last quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.9% in the 3rd quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI now owns 1,658,417 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $88,261,000 after buying an additional 162,544 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter worth $502,000. 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.