Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Upgraded to “Buy” at Melius

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) was upgraded by Melius from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report issued on Monday,Finviz reports. The firm presently has a $73.00 price objective on the network equipment provider’s stock, up from their previous price objective of $66.00. Melius’ target price points to a potential upside of 24.02% from the stock’s previous close.

CSCO has been the subject of a number of other reports. Bank of America lifted their price target on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Citigroup increased their target price on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Evercore ISI boosted their price target on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, September 20th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $60.95.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 0.4 %

Cisco Systems stock opened at $58.86 on Monday. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $58.31 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $52.76. Cisco Systems has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $60.23. The firm has a market cap of $234.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.26, a P/E/G ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.85. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.88 and a quick ratio of 0.80.

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 the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The firm had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.78 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.98 earnings per share. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 3,042 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.19, for a total value of $180,055.98. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 207,798 shares in the company, valued at $12,299,563.62. The trade was a 1.44 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 86,351 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $4,964,318.99. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 365,314 shares in the company, valued at approximately $21,001,901.86. This represents a 19.12 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 in the last 90 days. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cisco Systems

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in CSCO. Quarry LP increased its holdings 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 last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC raised its position 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 worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 309 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $40,000. Capital Performance Advisors LLP bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth $51,000. Finally, FSA Wealth Management LLC bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter worth about $56,000. 73.33% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.