Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Trading 0.1% Higher – Still a Buy?

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)’s stock price traded up 0.1% on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $59.02 and last traded at $58.70. 3,102,207 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 84% from the average session volume of 18,896,824 shares. The stock had previously closed at $58.63.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on CSCO. Jefferies Financial Group cut their price objective on Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $53.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $58.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 2.1 %

The firm has a market cap of $231.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 22.86, a P/E/G ratio of 4.86 and a beta of 0.83. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.91 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $53.82 and its two-hundred day moving average is $49.64.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $13.64 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 27.83% and a net margin of 19.18%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $1.01 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.76%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is currently 62.99%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 27,143 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.45, for a total transaction of $1,342,221.35. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 683,403 shares in the company, valued at approximately $33,794,278.35. The trade was a 3.82 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 3,379 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.36, for a total value of $170,166.44. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 47,182 shares in the company, valued at $2,376,085.52. This represents a 6.68 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 70,529 shares of company stock valued at $3,509,049. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Summit Securities Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the second quarter valued at approximately $25,000. Quarry LP increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 222.4% in the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 456 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC lifted its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% during the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the last quarter. Hobbs Group Advisors LLC acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems in the 2nd quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Finally, RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $40,000. 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.