Northwest Financial Advisors Raises Holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Northwest Financial Advisors lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 10.5% during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 4,313 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 409 shares during the quarter. Northwest Financial Advisors’ holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $255,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the business. Quarry LP grew its stake in shares of 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 during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 116.6% during the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after buying an additional 309 shares in the last quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC grew its position in 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 during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at about $40,000. Finally, Decker Retirement Planning Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $49,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 783,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,059,857.14. This represents a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 58,188 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 value of $3,345,228.12. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 219,100 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,596,059. The trade was a 20.98 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 over the last ninety days. 0.01% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently weighed in on CSCO. Melius Research raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price target for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Tigress Financial boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Bank of America lifted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $61.50.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 5.0 %

Shares of CSCO opened at $59.09 on Tuesday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $62.31. The company’s fifty day moving average is $59.22 and its two-hundred day moving average is $54.14. The firm has a market cap of $235.35 billion, a PE ratio of 25.36, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.59 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

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

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.71%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 68.67%.

Cisco Systems 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.