Morgan Stanley Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its target price increased by Morgan Stanley from $65.00 to $67.00 in a research note issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage currently has an “overweight” rating on the network equipment provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective would suggest a potential upside of 5.31% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other brokerages have also issued reports on CSCO. BNP Paribas raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price objective for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Piper Sandler cut their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $72.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Tuesday, April 8th. Citigroup cut their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $73.00 to $68.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 14th. DZ Bank raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Cisco Systems from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $72.00 to $75.00 in a report on Thursday. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $68.00.

Cisco Systems Trading Down 1.0%

Cisco Systems stock opened at $63.62 on Thursday. The firm has a 50 day moving average of $58.75 and a 200 day moving average of $59.66. The firm has a market capitalization of $253.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.78, a P/E/G ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.89. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $66.50. The company has a current ratio of 0.87, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

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

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that authorizes the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network equipment provider to repurchase up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of Cisco Systems 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 completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 200,191 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,886,294.67. This trade represents a 5.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 2,065 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $60.70, for a total value of $125,345.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 191,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,604,868.80. This trade represents a 1.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 14,635 shares of company stock worth $931,901 over the last three months. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Navigoe LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at about $26,000. JDM Financial Group LLC raised its holdings 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 valued at $29,000 after acquiring an additional 300 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Runnymede Capital Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at about $30,000. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.