Cisco Systems, Inc. Declares Quarterly Dividend of $0.40 (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 13th,RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.40 per share by the network equipment provider on Wednesday, January 22nd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.76%.

Cisco Systems has increased its dividend payment by an average of 2.7% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 13 consecutive years. Cisco Systems has a payout ratio of 44.8% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Cisco Systems to earn $3.14 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 51.0%.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

CSCO opened at $57.92 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a current ratio of 0.91. The company has a market cap of $231.14 billion, a PE ratio of 24.86, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $53.82 and a 200-day moving average of $49.64. Cisco Systems has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $59.38.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.02. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.62% and a net margin of 17.73%. The firm had revenue of $13.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.53 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $1.01 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at Cisco Systems

In other news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 22,309 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $1,115,450.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 293,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $14,659,200. This trade represents a 7.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 1,328 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.92, for a total value of $64,965.76. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 132,910 shares in the company, valued at $6,501,957.20. The trade was a 0.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 35,924 shares of company stock valued at $1,798,131. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several analysts recently issued reports on CSCO shares. HSBC raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price objective for the stock from $46.00 to $58.00 in a report on Friday, August 16th. Rosenblatt Securities upped their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Hsbc Global Res raised Cisco Systems to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, August 16th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $59.42.

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.