New Street Research Reaffirms “Neutral” Rating for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO)‘s stock had its “neutral” rating reiterated by analysts at New Street Research in a report released on Friday, MarketBeat Ratings reports. They currently have a $70.00 target price on the network equipment provider’s stock. New Street Research’s price target indicates a potential upside of 10.03% from the company’s current price.

A number of other brokerages also recently issued reports on CSCO. BNP Paribas upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. StockNews.com cut shares of Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $65.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company raised shares of Cisco Systems from an “equal weight” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $72.00 to $75.00 in a research note on Thursday. Seven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and three have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $68.00.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $63.62 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The stock’s fifty day moving average price is $58.75 and its 200 day moving average price is $59.69. The company has a market cap of $253.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.78, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.89. Cisco Systems has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $66.50.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.96 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.91 by $0.05. The business had revenue of $14.15 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations 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 business posted $0.88 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current year.

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

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.37, for a total value of $760,080.96. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 200,191 shares in the company, valued at $12,886,294.67. The trade was a 5.57% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 2,065 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.70, for a total value of $125,345.50. Following the completion of the transaction, 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. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 14,635 shares of company stock worth $931,901. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cisco Systems

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of CSCO. FPC Investment Advisory Inc. purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter valued at $26,000. Navigoe LLC purchased a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. Mpwm Advisory Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter worth about $26,000. JDM Financial Group LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 160.4% in the 4th quarter. JDM Financial Group LLC now owns 487 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $29,000 after purchasing an additional 300 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Runnymede Capital Advisors Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter valued at about $30,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

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.