Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Given New $60.00 Price Target at Wells Fargo & Company

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its price objective hoisted by Wells Fargo & Company from $57.00 to $60.00 in a research report released on Thursday morning,Benzinga reports. Wells Fargo & Company currently has an equal weight rating on the network equipment provider’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts also recently issued reports on the stock. New Street Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $57.00 price target for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. StockNews.com cut Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 5th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price target on Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $53.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Tigress Financial boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Eleven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $57.46 on Thursday. The business has a 50 day moving average of $54.18 and a 200 day moving average of $49.76. 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 $229.31 billion, a PE ratio of 24.66, a P/E/G ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83. 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 issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $13.64 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.62%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $1.01 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.78%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Insider Activity

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 1,328 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $48.92, for a total value of $64,965.76. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 132,910 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,501,957.20. This represents a 0.99 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 3,379 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.36, for a total value of $170,166.44. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 47,182 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,376,085.52. This represents a 6.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 35,924 shares of company stock valued at $1,798,131 over the last three months. 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 made changes to their positions in CSCO. Swedbank AB bought a new position in Cisco Systems in the first quarter worth approximately $840,538,000. FMR LLC increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 327.5% in the 3rd quarter. Two Sigma Advisers LP now owns 6,819,000 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $362,907,000 after purchasing an additional 5,223,800 shares during the period. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 22.5% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 26,409,843 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,254,739,000 after purchasing an additional 4,843,146 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Pathway Financial Advisers LLC grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 5,231.5% during the third quarter. Pathway Financial Advisers LLC now owns 4,935,107 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $262,646,000 after purchasing an additional 4,842,542 shares during the period. 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.