Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Upgraded at DZ Bank

DZ Bank upgraded shares of Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) from a hold rating to a buy rating in a research note released on Tuesday, Marketbeat reports.

CSCO has been the subject of a number of other reports. Melius upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their target price for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. StockNews.com upgraded Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 14th. 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 report on Tuesday, January 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Barclays increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have given a buy rating and three have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $66.53.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $64.67 on Tuesday. Cisco Systems has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $66.50. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $257.57 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.24, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $60.55 and a 200-day moving average price of $56.01.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. Equities research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems announced that its board has approved a share buyback program on Wednesday, February 12th that permits the company to buyback $15.00 billion in shares. This buyback authorization permits the network equipment provider to buy up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares buyback programs are usually a sign that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.41 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.54%. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 69.87%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cisco Systems news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 19,929 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $1,283,626.89. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now owns 335,605 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,616,318.05. The trade was a 5.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total value of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 736,120 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. This trade represents a 4.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 67,921 shares of company stock valued at $4,298,667 over the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. Forum Financial Management LP lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 29.5% during the 4th quarter. Forum Financial Management LP now owns 41,168 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,437,000 after acquiring an additional 9,380 shares during the period. Griffith & Werner Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter worth $399,000. Michels Family Financial LLC acquired a new position in Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at $936,000. Castlekeep Investment Advisors LLC acquired a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter worth about $855,000. Finally, Westfuller Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the fourth quarter worth about $217,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

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.