Anchor Capital Advisors LLC Has $666,000 Holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Anchor Capital Advisors LLC cut its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 79.1% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The fund owned 11,254 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 42,490 shares during the quarter. Anchor Capital Advisors LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $666,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Several other hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Shoker Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Shoker Investment Counsel Inc. now owns 61,745 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,655,000 after acquiring an additional 430 shares during the last quarter. Fusion Capital LLC lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 3.2% during the fourth quarter. Fusion Capital LLC now owns 119,554 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $7,078,000 after acquiring an additional 3,746 shares during the last quarter. CORDA Investment Management LLC. lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 42.2% during the fourth quarter. CORDA Investment Management LLC. now owns 38,611 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,286,000 after acquiring an additional 11,451 shares during the last quarter. Linscomb Wealth Inc. lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 3.3% during the fourth quarter. Linscomb Wealth Inc. now owns 181,902 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $10,769,000 after acquiring an additional 5,734 shares during the last quarter. Finally, QRG Capital Management Inc. lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 4.6% during the fourth quarter. QRG Capital Management Inc. now owns 790,217 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $46,781,000 after acquiring an additional 35,006 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ CSCO opened at $64.14 on Friday. The firm’s fifty day moving average price is $61.23 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $56.79. The stock has a market cap of $255.15 billion, a PE ratio of 28.01, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $66.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.79 and a current ratio of 0.87.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its 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 return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. On average, equities analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that allows the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network equipment provider to reacquire up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s leadership believes its stock is undervalued.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be paid a dividend of $0.41 per share. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.56%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. This is a boost from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 71.62%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.37, for a total value of $760,080.96. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 200,191 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $12,886,294.67. The trade was a 5.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 736,120 shares in the company, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. This represents a 4.16 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 74,848 shares of company stock valued at $4,767,206. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on the stock. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target for the company in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. Barclays lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. DZ Bank upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. Rosenblatt Securities upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and lifted their price target for the company from $66.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, February 22nd. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $66.63.

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.