Assetmark Inc. Acquires 5,622 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Assetmark Inc. grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 7.0% during the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 86,164 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 5,622 shares during the period. Assetmark Inc.’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $5,101,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. State Street Corp grew its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after buying an additional 3,241,682 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.3% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $5,075,320,000 after purchasing an additional 1,262,017 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 82,720,255 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $4,402,239,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,383 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 1.2% in the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,107,930,000 after purchasing an additional 216,632 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several brokerages recently commented on CSCO. DZ Bank raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $69.00 to $73.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. Melius raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price objective for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Barclays reaffirmed an “equal weight” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research note on Thursday. Finally, The Goldman Sachs Group raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $66.63.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 0.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ CSCO opened at $63.94 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $254.37 billion, a P/E ratio of 27.92, a P/E/G ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.79. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $61.63 and a 200-day moving average price of $57.39. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $66.50. 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 analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a net margin of 16.96% and a return on equity of 26.08%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be given a dividend of $0.41 per share. This is a positive change from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.56%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 71.62%.

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that authorizes the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes 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 board believes its stock is undervalued.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 11,808 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction dated 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 approximately $12,886,294.67. The trade was a 5.57 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction dated 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. Insiders have sold 67,348 shares of company stock valued at $4,318,181 over the last ninety days. 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.