Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Cut to Buy at Wall Street Zen

Wall Street Zen cut shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) from a strong-buy rating to a buy rating in a research report report published on Saturday.

Several other brokerages have also weighed in on CSCO. Barclays restated an “equal weight” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Wednesday, May 21st. New Street Research reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $70.00 target price on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Friday, May 16th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $65.00 to $73.00 in a report on Monday, June 16th. Citigroup increased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $68.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, May 15th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $72.00 to $75.00 in a report on Thursday, May 15th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, sixteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $69.95.

Cisco Systems Trading Down 0.2%

Shares of NASDAQ CSCO opened at $67.82 on Friday. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $65.19 and its 200 day simple moving average is $61.89. Cisco Systems has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $69.78. The firm has a market capitalization of $268.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.68, a P/E/G ratio of 4.07 and a beta of 0.90. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.50, a current ratio of 0.95 and a quick ratio of 0.87.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.96 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.92 by $0.04. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.60% and a return on equity of 26.48%. The business had revenue of $14.15 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $14.05 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.88 earnings per share. Cisco Systems’s revenue was up 11.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, analysts predict that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be given a $0.41 dividend. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.42%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, July 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 66.94%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 29,784 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.61, for a total value of $1,924,344.24. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 688,409 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $44,478,105.49. This trade represents a 4.15% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 9,643 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $63.50, for a total transaction of $612,330.50. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president directly owned 181,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,505,311. This trade represents a 5.05% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 97,335 shares of company stock valued at $6,271,054 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Pacifica Partners Inc. lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 0.5% in the second quarter. Pacifica Partners Inc. now owns 34,060 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,338,000 after acquiring an additional 155 shares during the last quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 2.9% in the first quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC now owns 5,654 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $349,000 after acquiring an additional 159 shares during the last quarter. Central Valley Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 2.6% in the second quarter. Central Valley Advisors LLC now owns 6,303 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $437,000 after acquiring an additional 159 shares during the last quarter. Capital Advisory Group Advisory Services LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.1% in the second quarter. Capital Advisory Group Advisory Services LLC now owns 14,291 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $992,000 after acquiring an additional 159 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Boltwood Capital Management lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.4% in the second quarter. Boltwood Capital Management now owns 11,593 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $804,000 after acquiring an additional 160 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.