Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) Shares Sold by Eads & Heald Wealth Management

Eads & Heald Wealth Management lowered its stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 0.9% during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The institutional investor owned 31,232 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 275 shares during the quarter. Eads & Heald Wealth Management’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,849,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.7% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,075,320,000 after buying an additional 1,262,017 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 2.1% in the third 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 acquiring an additional 1,677,383 shares in the last quarter. FMR LLC grew its holdings in Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after acquiring an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 3.3% in the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 47,593,944 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,261,185,000 after purchasing an additional 1,530,468 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of brokerages recently commented on CSCO. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Melius upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Wells Fargo & Company upped their target price on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, Melius Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Eight research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.50.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $61.03 on Wednesday. The firm has a market cap of $243.07 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.19, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.48 and a beta of 0.84. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a twelve month low of $44.50 and a twelve month high of $61.33. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The company has a 50-day moving average of $58.94 and a 200-day moving average of $53.70.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. Cisco Systems’s revenue for the quarter was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.62%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is currently 68.67%.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 86,351 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $4,964,318.99. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 365,314 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,001,901.86. This represents a 19.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total value of $9,873,562.56. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Cisco Systems Company 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.