Empirical Asset Management LLC Increases Stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Empirical Asset Management LLC raised its holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 39.6% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The institutional investor owned 46,338 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 13,155 shares during the quarter. Empirical Asset Management LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $2,743,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Quarry LP grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 222.4% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after purchasing an additional 456 shares in the last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% in the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 309 shares during the period. Highline Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 76.7% during the fourth quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $35,000 after buying an additional 260 shares in the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth approximately $40,000. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at approximately $51,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms have commented on CSCO. Tigress Financial boosted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. Melius upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. StockNews.com upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Citigroup raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $61.50.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 0.7 %

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $60.23 on Friday. The company’s fifty day moving average is $58.87 and its two-hundred day moving average is $53.43. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $60.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.88. The company has a market capitalization of $239.88 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.85, a PEG ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The firm had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.78 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.98 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.66%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $9,873,562.56. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 86,351 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $4,964,318.99. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 365,314 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,001,901.86. The trade was a 19.12 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is owned by company 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.