Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) Plans $0.40 Quarterly Dividend

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, November 13th,RTT News reports. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a dividend of 0.40 per share by the network equipment provider on Wednesday, January 22nd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.70%.

Cisco Systems has increased its dividend by an average of 2.7% per year over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 13 consecutive years. Cisco Systems has a payout ratio of 44.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Cisco Systems to earn $3.14 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 51.0%.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 0.8 %

Shares of Cisco Systems stock traded up $0.47 during trading on Wednesday, reaching $59.18. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 33,151,363 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,023,014. Cisco Systems has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $59.38. The company has a market cap of $236.17 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.05, a PEG ratio of 4.86 and a beta of 0.83. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $53.64 and its two-hundred day moving average is $49.57. The company has a quick ratio of 0.83, a current ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.02. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 19.18% and a return on equity of 27.83%. The business had revenue of $13.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.53 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.01 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Cisco Systems to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 16th. Evercore ISI raised their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 20th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Jefferies Financial Group decreased their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $53.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities increased their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $58.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, ten have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $57.32.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 27,143 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.45, for a total transaction of $1,342,221.35. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now owns 683,403 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $33,794,278.35. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 27,143 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $49.45, for a total transaction of $1,342,221.35. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 683,403 shares in the company, valued at $33,794,278.35. This trade represents a 0.00 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 22,309 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $1,115,450.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 293,184 shares in the company, valued at approximately $14,659,200. The trade was a 0.00 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 70,529 shares of company stock valued at $3,509,049 over the last 90 days. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

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.