Optas LLC Acquires 562 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Optas LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 4.6% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 12,697 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 562 shares during the period. Optas LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $752,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 116.6% in the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the period. Highline Wealth Partners LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 76.7% in the 4th quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after purchasing an additional 260 shares during the last quarter. Quarry LP lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 222.4% in the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 456 shares during the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $40,000. Finally, Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $49,000. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Morgan Stanley increased 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. Melius upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Barclays upped their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 0.7 %

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $61.04 on Tuesday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $62.31. The firm has a market capitalization of $243.11 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.80. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $59.44 and its 200-day moving average price is $54.58.

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

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.62%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $9,873,562.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total value of $34,392.34. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 50,767 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,979,515.23. The trade was a 1.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 over the last 90 days. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.