Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock Rating Upgraded by Melius

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) was upgraded by investment analysts at Melius from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued to investors on Monday, MarketBeat.com reports. The firm currently has a $73.00 target price on the network equipment provider’s stock, up from their previous target price of $66.00. Melius’ price objective points to a potential upside of 23.88% from the company’s current price.

CSCO has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Citigroup raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group raised their price objective on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Bank of America lifted their target price on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Evercore ISI lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $60.95.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $58.93 on Monday. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $60.23. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $58.44 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $52.93. The company has a market capitalization of $234.70 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.29, a P/E/G ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

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, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The firm had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The company’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.98 EPS. Analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp raised 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 valued at $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its position in shares of 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 buying an additional 1,262,017 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.1% in 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 buying an additional 1,677,383 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its holdings 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 buying an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 3.3% in the second quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 47,593,944 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,261,185,000 after acquiring an additional 1,530,468 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

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.