Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Given New $72.00 Price Target at Bank of America

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its price objective boosted by stock analysts at Bank of America from $60.00 to $72.00 in a research report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The firm presently has a “buy” rating on the network equipment provider’s stock. Bank of America‘s price target would indicate a potential upside of 25.30% from the stock’s previous close.

CSCO has been the subject of a number of other reports. Citigroup raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $52.00 to $62.00 in a research report on Wednesday, October 16th. Hsbc Global Res raised shares of Cisco Systems to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday, August 16th. HSBC upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the company from $46.00 to $58.00 in a research report on Friday, August 16th. Evercore ISI boosted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Finally, New Street Research upgraded 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. Eleven equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $57.46 on Thursday. Cisco Systems has a 1-year low of $44.50 and a 1-year high of $59.38. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock has a market cap of $229.31 billion, a PE ratio of 24.66, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $54.18 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $49.76.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $13.64 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.62%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.01 earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 1,328 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.92, for a total value of $64,965.76. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 132,910 shares in the company, 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 document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 3,379 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 28th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.36, for a total transaction 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. The trade was a 6.68 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 35,924 shares of company stock worth $1,798,131 in the last ninety days. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cisco Systems

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of CSCO. State Street Corp grew its position in Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after acquiring an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $5,075,320,000 after purchasing an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 2.1% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 82,720,255 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $4,402,239,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,383 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its position in Cisco Systems by 2.7% during the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 70,317,061 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,340,764,000 after buying an additional 1,853,598 shares during the period. Finally, FMR LLC grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,402,432,000 after buying an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other 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.