Boston Partners Reduces Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Boston Partners lessened its position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 0.6% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 3,644,951 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 23,450 shares during the quarter. Boston Partners’ holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $215,826,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in CSCO. Swedbank AB grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. Swedbank AB now owns 9,029,594 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $480,555,000 after buying an additional 52,711 shares during the last quarter. Napa Wealth Management acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $210,000. New England Asset Management Inc. lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 0.6% during the 3rd quarter. New England Asset Management Inc. now owns 141,896 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $7,552,000 after acquiring an additional 840 shares during the period. Baron Wealth Management LLC lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 78.3% during the 3rd quarter. Baron Wealth Management LLC now owns 10,789 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $574,000 after acquiring an additional 4,739 shares during the period. Finally, Aviance Capital Partners LLC lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 2.7% during the 3rd quarter. Aviance Capital Partners LLC now owns 87,924 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $4,679,000 after acquiring an additional 2,346 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CSCO has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Barclays reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. StockNews.com cut Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 5th. Citigroup reaffirmed an “overweight” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, March 6th. BNP Paribas raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target for the company in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $66.63.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $60.30 on Wednesday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1-year low of $44.50 and a 1-year high of $66.50. The company has a market capitalization of $239.89 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.33, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.79. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $61.86 and a 200 day moving average price of $57.94. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.79.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. Sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.41 per share. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.72%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.62%.

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has approved a share buyback plan on Wednesday, February 12th that allows the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network equipment provider to buy up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are usually an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total value of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 736,120 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $47,413,489.20. The trade was a 4.16 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 762 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.99, for a total value of $46,474.38. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 44,155 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,693,013.45. This represents a 1.70 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 66,547 shares of company stock valued at $4,275,553. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

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.