Evercore ISI Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its price objective lifted by research analysts at Evercore ISI from $67.00 to $72.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm currently has an “outperform” rating on the network equipment provider’s stock. Evercore ISI’s price objective would indicate a potential upside of 13.17% from the company’s current price.

A number of other equities research analysts also recently commented on the stock. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $68.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $63.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $65.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday. Wells Fargo & Company upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and lifted their price target for the stock from $72.00 to $75.00 in a report on Thursday. Finally, DZ Bank raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $68.00.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $63.62 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $58.75 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $59.66. Cisco Systems has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $66.50. The company has a market capitalization of $253.10 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.89.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.96 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $14.15 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $14.05 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 16.96% and a return on equity of 26.08%. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.88 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems declared that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase plan on Wednesday, February 12th that allows the company to buyback $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization allows the network equipment provider to purchase up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 762 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.99, for a total transaction of $46,474.38. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 44,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,693,013.45. The trade was a 1.70% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.37, for a total transaction of $760,080.96. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 200,191 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,886,294.67. The trade was a 5.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 14,635 shares of company stock valued at $931,901 over the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter worth $26,000. Navigoe LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth $26,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth $26,000. JDM Financial Group LLC increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 160.4% in the fourth quarter. JDM Financial Group LLC now owns 487 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $29,000 after buying an additional 300 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Runnymede Capital Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth $30,000. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.