GFS Advisors LLC Buys New Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

GFS Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO - Free Report) in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the SEC. The institutional investor bought 48,709 shares of the network equipment provider's stock, valued at approximately $2,884,000.

Other large investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $10,297,506,000 after acquiring an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $5,075,320,000 after acquiring an additional 1,262,017 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 82,720,255 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $4,402,239,000 after acquiring an additional 1,677,383 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $3,402,432,000 after buying an additional 5,885,879 shares during the period. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider's stock worth $1,107,930,000 after buying an additional 216,632 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CSCO has been the subject of several research reports. Citigroup raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, January 17th. BNP Paribas raised shares of Cisco Systems from a "neutral" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $72.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Bank of America raised their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Tigress Financial raised their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Finally, Barclays raised their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an "equal weight" rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of CSCO traded up $0.32 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $61.36. 5,866,333 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 18,436,324. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $62.31. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The company has a market cap of $244.36 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.34, a PEG ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $59.49 and its 200 day simple moving average is $54.67.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO - Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts' consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. Cisco Systems's revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.61%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 68.67%.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 3,042 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.19, for a total value of $180,055.98. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now 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 transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, Director Kristina M. Johnson sold 7,500 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.87, for a total value of $449,025.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 65,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,946,331.05. This represents a 10.22 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721 over the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

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.