Welch Group LLC Has $8.60 Million Stock Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Welch Group LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 2.8% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 145,248 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,904 shares during the period. Welch Group LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $8,597,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in 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 buying an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake 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 buying an additional 1,677,383 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after acquiring an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.2% in the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,107,930,000 after acquiring an additional 216,632 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of research firms have issued reports on CSCO. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Citigroup upped their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, January 17th. Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Finally, Tigress Financial upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $61.04 on Tuesday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $62.31. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $59.44 and its 200-day moving average is $54.58. The company has a market capitalization of $243.11 billion, a PE ratio of 26.20, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.98 EPS. Equities research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were paid a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.62%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other news, Director Kristina M. Johnson sold 7,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.87, for a total value of $449,025.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 65,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,946,331.05. This trade represents a 10.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total value of $34,392.34. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,767 shares in the company, valued at $2,979,515.23. The trade was a 1.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721. 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.