Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Upgraded at Citigroup

Citigroup upgraded shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO - Free Report) from a neutral rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Wednesday, Marketbeat.com reports. They currently have $62.00 price target on the network equipment provider's stock, up from their previous price target of $52.00.

CSCO has been the topic of a number of other research reports. Piper Sandler reissued a "neutral" rating and set a $52.00 price objective on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Thursday, August 15th. New Street Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $57.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Tigress Financial raised their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Monday. HSBC raised shares of Cisco Systems from a "hold" rating to a "buy" rating and lifted their target price for the company from $46.00 to $58.00 in a report on Friday, August 16th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a "hold" rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Thursday, August 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have issued a hold rating, nine have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company's stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems has an average rating of "Hold" and an average target price of $56.74.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 4.3 %

Cisco Systems stock traded up $2.30 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $56.38. The stock had a trading volume of 32,356,072 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,193,113. Cisco Systems has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $56.41. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $50.51 and a 200 day moving average price of $48.45. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock has a market cap of $227.14 billion, a PE ratio of 18.21, a P/E/G ratio of 4.22 and a beta of 0.83.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $0.85 by $0.02. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 19.18% and a return on equity of 27.83%. The company had revenue of $13.64 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.53 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.01 earnings per share. The firm's quarterly revenue was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Cisco Systems will post 2.9 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, October 23rd. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, October 2nd will be given a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, October 2nd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.84%. Cisco Systems's payout ratio is currently 53.87%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 7,462 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.41, for a total transaction of $368,697.42. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 165,580 shares in the company, valued at approximately $8,181,307.80. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 27,143 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.45, for a total value of $1,342,221.35. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 683,403 shares in the company, valued at $33,794,278.35. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 7,462 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.41, for a total transaction of $368,697.42. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now owns 165,580 shares in the company, valued at $8,181,307.80. This represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 70,529 shares of company stock worth $3,509,049. Corporate insiders own 0.02% of the company's stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cisco Systems

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. Swedbank AB purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the 1st quarter valued at about $840,538,000. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its holdings 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 in the last quarter. Natixis lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 438.4% in the 1st quarter. Natixis now owns 4,924,988 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $245,806,000 after purchasing an additional 4,010,228 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 26.5% in the 1st quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 13,858,505 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $691,678,000 after purchasing an additional 2,906,357 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capitolis Liquid Global Markets LLC lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 318.4% in the 1st quarter. Capitolis Liquid Global Markets LLC now owns 3,782,100 shares of the network equipment provider's stock valued at $188,765,000 after purchasing an additional 2,878,100 shares in the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.