Morgan Stanley Issues Positive Forecast for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock Price

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its target price boosted by equities researchers at Morgan Stanley from $58.00 to $62.00 in a note issued to investors on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “overweight” rating on the network equipment provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price objective indicates a potential upside of 7.90% from the stock’s current price.

CSCO has been the subject of a number of other reports. Piper Sandler restated a “neutral” rating and issued a $52.00 price objective on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Thursday, August 15th. Citigroup raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $52.00 to $62.00 in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Thursday, August 15th. New Street Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $57.00 price target for the company in a research report on Thursday, August 15th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group decreased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $53.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Eleven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $59.42.

Cisco Systems Stock Down 0.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $57.46 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.91, a quick ratio of 0.83 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $54.00 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $49.69. Cisco Systems has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $59.38. The stock has a market capitalization of $229.31 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 24.66, a PEG ratio of 4.90 and a beta of 0.83.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, August 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.85 by $0.02. The company had revenue of $13.64 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.62%. Cisco Systems’s revenue for the quarter was down 10.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $1.01 EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems will post 2.89 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Cisco Systems

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 638 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.09, for a total value of $31,319.42. Following the sale, the senior vice president now owns 46,017 shares in the company, valued at $2,258,974.53. This represents a 1.37 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 22,309 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $1,115,450.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now directly owns 293,184 shares in the company, valued at $14,659,200. This trade represents a 7.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 35,924 shares of company stock worth $1,798,131 over the last three months. 0.01% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Cisco Systems

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Valued Retirements Inc. purchased a new position in Cisco Systems in the 3rd quarter valued at $264,000. Frisch Financial Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 5.8% in the 3rd quarter. Frisch Financial Group Inc. now owns 7,889 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $420,000 after buying an additional 430 shares during the period. Raelipskie Partnership purchased a new stake in Cisco Systems during the 3rd quarter worth about $1,598,000. LRI Investments LLC raised its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 104.3% in the 3rd quarter. LRI Investments LLC now owns 20,514 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,188,000 after purchasing an additional 10,472 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Harvest Investment Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 2.2% during the third quarter. Harvest Investment Advisors LLC now owns 29,965 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,595,000 after purchasing an additional 645 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

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.