Stewart & Patten Co. LLC Increases Holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Stewart & Patten Co. LLC increased its stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 1.4% in the 1st quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 363,910 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 4,915 shares during the quarter. Cisco Systems makes up about 2.7% of Stewart & Patten Co. LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest position. Stewart & Patten Co. LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $18,163,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Norges Bank bought a new stake in Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter valued at $2,528,939,000. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its stake in Cisco Systems by 9.5% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 73,439,747 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,672,445,000 after buying an additional 6,345,954 shares during the period. FIL Ltd boosted its stake in Cisco Systems by 47.1% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 18,922,422 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $955,961,000 after buying an additional 6,054,748 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 29.0% during the fourth quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 17,727,214 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $895,576,000 after purchasing an additional 3,989,543 shares during the last quarter. Finally, California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 25.0% during the fourth quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 18,750,237 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $947,262,000 after purchasing an additional 3,753,165 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages have issued reports on CSCO. BNP Paribas raised Cisco Systems from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $50.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday, May 13th. Bank of America raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $55.00 to $60.00 in a research note on Monday, April 15th. Barclays lifted their price target on Cisco Systems from $48.00 to $50.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, May 17th. StockNews.com lowered Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 23rd. Finally, Oppenheimer lifted their price target on Cisco Systems from $54.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 16th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fifteen have assigned a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $56.47.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 8,016 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.24, for a total value of $386,691.84. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 180,705 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,717,209.20. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 8,016 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.24, for a total value of $386,691.84. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 180,705 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,717,209.20. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 26,331 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 29th. The shares were sold at an average price of $46.10, for a total value of $1,213,859.10. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 725,363 shares in the company, valued at $33,439,234.30. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 41,106 shares of company stock worth $1,908,923. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 0.0 %

Shares of CSCO stock traded up $0.01 during midday trading on Monday, reaching $47.52. 17,769,230 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 19,724,012. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.95 and a 1 year high of $58.19. The company’s 50 day moving average is $47.06 and its two-hundred day moving average is $48.78. The company has a current ratio of 0.89, a quick ratio of 0.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.44. The firm has a market cap of $191.45 billion, a PE ratio of 15.98, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.75 and a beta of 0.85.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, May 15th. The network equipment provider reported $0.88 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.18. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 30.82% and a net margin of 21.88%. The firm had revenue of $12.70 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $12.53 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.88 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 12.8% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities research analysts predict that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.14 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 5th will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, July 5th. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.37%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 53.87%.

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.