Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock Rating Upgraded by William Blair

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) was upgraded by research analysts at William Blair to a “hold” rating in a note issued to investors on Thursday,Zacks.com reports.

Several other research firms also recently commented on CSCO. Wells Fargo & Company raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $75.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday. Wall Street Zen downgraded Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Saturday, July 12th. Rosenblatt Securities restated a “buy” rating and set a $87.00 target price on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $73.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, July 17th. Finally, Evercore ISI raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $72.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock an “in-line” rating in a research report on Thursday. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $74.53.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of CSCO stock opened at $66.20 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $67.98 and a two-hundred day moving average of $63.33. The company has a current ratio of 1.01, a quick ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. Cisco Systems has a 12 month low of $47.85 and a 12 month high of $72.55. The company has a market capitalization of $262.15 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.27, a P/E/G ratio of 3.84 and a beta of 0.91.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.99 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.98 by $0.01. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 27.02% and a net margin of 18.45%. The company had revenue of $14.67 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $14.63 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.87 EPS. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 2,407 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, June 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.01, for a total value of $154,072.07. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president directly owned 177,027 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,331,498.27. This trade represents a 1.34% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, insider Jeetendra I. Patel sold 899 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Thursday, June 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.27, for a total value of $57,778.73. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 255,377 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,413,079.79. This trade represents a 0.35% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 77,731 shares of company stock worth $5,021,519. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cisco Systems

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 393,989,568 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $27,334,996,000 after purchasing an additional 5,039,714 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 0.6% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 194,695,250 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $13,507,956,000 after purchasing an additional 1,067,872 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.2% during the second quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 99,252,395 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $6,864,058,000 after purchasing an additional 1,157,704 shares during the period. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the second quarter worth $3,816,825,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 3.0% during the second quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 48,531,251 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,367,098,000 after purchasing an additional 1,414,105 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.