Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Issues Q4 Earnings Guidance

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) issued an update on its fourth quarter earnings guidance on Wednesday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of $0.84-0.86 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $0.86. The company issued revenue guidance of $13.4-13.6 billion, compared to the consensus revenue estimate of $13.25 billion.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CSCO has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Barclays raised their price target on Cisco Systems from $46.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock an equal weight rating in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $51.00 to $52.00 and gave the stock a hold rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. UBS Group raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $54.00 to $55.00 and gave the company a neutral rating in a research report on Monday, February 12th. Citigroup assumed coverage on Cisco Systems in a research report on Friday, April 12th. They set a neutral rating and a $52.00 price objective on the stock. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded Cisco Systems from a hold rating to a buy rating in a report on Monday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have given a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of Hold and an average target price of $55.81.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $49.67 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The business’s 50 day moving average is $48.73 and its two-hundred day moving average is $49.56. The stock has a market capitalization of $201.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 15.10, a PEG ratio of 2.81 and a beta of 0.87. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $45.70 and a 12-month high of $58.19.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, May 15th. The network equipment provider reported $0.88 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.71 by $0.17. The firm had revenue of $12.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $12.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 33.01% and a net margin of 23.49%. Cisco Systems’s revenue was down 12.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.88 earnings per share. Research analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 3.13 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, July 24th. Shareholders of record on Friday, July 5th will be given a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.22%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is currently 48.63%.

Insider Transactions at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 3,002 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.01, for a total transaction of $150,130.02. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 191,559 shares in the company, valued at $9,579,865.59. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 13,942 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $697,100.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 328,491 shares in the company, valued at $16,424,550. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 3,002 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.01, for a total transaction of $150,130.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 191,559 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,579,865.59. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 19,441 shares of company stock valued at $972,080 in the last quarter. 0.02% 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.