Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Price Target Raised to $72.00 at Bank of America

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its price target increased by Bank of America from $60.00 to $72.00 in a research report sent to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. They currently have a buy rating on the network equipment provider’s stock.

CSCO has been the topic of a number of other reports. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. StockNews.com cut shares of Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 5th. Finally, Tigress Financial lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Ten research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $59.94.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of CSCO stock opened at $57.46 on Thursday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.83. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $54.18 and its two-hundred day moving average is $49.80. Cisco Systems has a 12 month low of $44.50 and a 12 month high of $59.38. The company has a market capitalization of $229.31 billion, a PE ratio of 24.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.76 and a beta of 0.83.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its earnings results 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. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts predict that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.78%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 638 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.09, for a total transaction of $31,319.42. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 46,017 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,258,974.53. The trade was a 1.37 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 22,309 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $1,115,450.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 293,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $14,659,200. This represents a 7.07 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 35,924 shares of company stock worth $1,798,131 over the last 90 days. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

Several institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of CSCO. Swedbank AB purchased a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the 1st quarter worth approximately $840,538,000. FMR LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP raised its position in Cisco Systems by 327.5% in the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 6,819,000 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $362,907,000 after purchasing an additional 5,223,800 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its position in Cisco Systems by 22.5% in the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 26,409,843 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,254,739,000 after purchasing an additional 4,843,146 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Pathway Financial Advisers LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems by 5,231.5% in the 3rd quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 4,935,107 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $262,646,000 after purchasing an additional 4,842,542 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.