First Fiduciary Investment Counsel Inc. Sells 5,617 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

First Fiduciary Investment Counsel Inc. lessened its position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 2.8% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 193,805 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 5,617 shares during the period. Cisco Systems makes up approximately 2.3% of First Fiduciary Investment Counsel Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 18th largest position. First Fiduciary Investment Counsel Inc.’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $11,473,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Summit Trail Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 16.2% during the fourth quarter. Summit Trail Advisors LLC now owns 88,046 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,212,000 after acquiring an additional 12,247 shares during the period. POM Investment Strategies LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 195.7% during the fourth quarter. POM Investment Strategies LLC now owns 1,366 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $81,000 after acquiring an additional 904 shares during the period. Sapient Capital LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 3.5% during the fourth quarter. Sapient Capital LLC now owns 24,776 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,467,000 after acquiring an additional 839 shares during the period. Pineridge Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 77.0% during the fourth quarter. Pineridge Advisors LLC now owns 4,589 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $272,000 after acquiring an additional 1,997 shares during the period. Finally, Arlington Trust Co LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 8.1% during the fourth quarter. Arlington Trust Co LLC now owns 14,137 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $837,000 after acquiring an additional 1,062 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on CSCO shares. BNP Paribas upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target for the company in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Melius upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Wells Fargo & Company boosted their price target on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Barclays boosted their price target on Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $62.81 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $250.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.96, a PEG ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $63.25. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $59.71 and a 200 day simple moving average of $55.10. 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 data on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The business 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%. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued 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 2.55%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total transaction of $291,542.13. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 51,931 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The stock was 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. This trade represents a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

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.