MFA Wealth Services Buys New Stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

MFA Wealth Services purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund purchased 12,906 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $764,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Quarry LP grew 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 valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 456 shares in the last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% in the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 309 shares in the last quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 76.7% during the fourth quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 260 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at $40,000. Finally, Decker Retirement Planning Inc. purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at $49,000. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 1.0 %

CSCO opened at $62.23 on Friday. The business’s fifty day simple moving average is $59.04 and its 200 day simple moving average is $53.86. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $62.32. The firm has a market cap of $247.85 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.71, a PEG ratio of 4.59 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating 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 business had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.78 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.57%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 68.67%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Barclays upped their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Bank of America upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $61.50.

Insider Transactions at Cisco Systems

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 783,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,059,857.14. This represents a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 21,230 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.07, for a total transaction of $1,211,596.10. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 213,834 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,203,506.38. This trade represents a 9.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.