Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Lifted to “Buy” at Bank of America

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) was upgraded by analysts at Bank of America from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note issued on Monday, Marketbeat Ratings reports. The brokerage currently has a $60.00 price target on the network equipment provider’s stock, up from their previous price target of $55.00. Bank of America‘s price target would suggest a potential upside of 23.74% from the company’s current price.

Several other research analysts have also commented on the stock. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $54.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 12th. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of Cisco Systems in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. They issued an “overweight” rating and a $58.00 price target for the company. StockNews.com cut Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. Melius downgraded Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, January 8th. Finally, Citigroup initiated coverage on shares of Cisco Systems in a research note on Friday. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $52.00 price target for the company. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $56.03.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 2.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $48.49 on Monday. The company has a market capitalization of $196.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.74, a PEG ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 0.87. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $45.56 and a 12-month high of $58.19. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $49.25 and a 200 day moving average price of $50.41. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.84 by $0.03. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 33.01% and a net margin of 23.49%. The business had revenue of $12.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $12.71 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $0.76 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 3.15 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other Cisco Systems news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $124,850.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 58,121 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,906,050. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 3,002 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.01, for a total value of $150,130.02. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now owns 191,559 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,579,865.59. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $124,850.00. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 58,121 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,906,050. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 19,441 shares of company stock worth $972,080 over the last 90 days. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 112,307.0% during the 4th quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 59,519,500 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,835,509,000 after acquiring an additional 59,466,550 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth $2,528,939,000. Legal & General Group Plc boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 34.3% during the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 45,217,668 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,284,397,000 after buying an additional 11,552,694 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 17.4% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 61,788,267 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,943,593,000 after buying an additional 9,160,347 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Barclays PLC raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 83.6% in the 2nd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 14,544,909 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $752,554,000 after acquiring an additional 6,621,125 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

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.