Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) to Issue Quarterly Dividend of $0.41

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, February 12th,RTT News reports. Investors of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be paid a dividend of 0.41 per share by the network equipment provider on Wednesday, April 23rd. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.62%. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40.

Cisco Systems has raised its dividend by an average of 2.6% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend every year for the last 12 years. Cisco Systems has a payout ratio of 40.7% indicating that its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities research analysts expect Cisco Systems to earn $3.17 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 50.5%.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

CSCO traded up $0.10 during midday trading on Wednesday, hitting $62.53. 29,257,384 shares of the company traded hands, compared to its average volume of 19,037,018. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $59.84 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $55.31. Cisco Systems has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $63.25. The company has a market capitalization of $249.04 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.84, a PEG ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.84. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. On average, equities analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 3,042 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.19, for a total transaction of $180,055.98. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 207,798 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,299,563.62. This represents a 1.44 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, Director Kristina M. Johnson sold 7,500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.87, for a total value of $449,025.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 65,915 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,946,331.05. The trade was a 10.22 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on CSCO. Barclays increased their price objective 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. Wells Fargo & Company increased their price target 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. UBS Group increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Piper Sandler upped their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $62.72.

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.