Cisco Systems Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) saw unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Stock traders bought 70,685 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 47% compared to the average daily volume of 48,197 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Friday, September 20th. Melius upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their price target for the company from $66.00 to $73.00 in a research report on Monday, January 6th. UBS Group increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Tigress Financial lifted their price objective on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, October 14th. Finally, Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Monday, January 6th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have given a buy rating and two have issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $61.50.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $59.73, for a total value of $291,542.13. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 51,931 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,101,838.63. This trade represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 21,230 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, November 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.07, for a total value of $1,211,596.10. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 213,834 shares in the company, valued at approximately $12,203,506.38. The trade was a 9.03 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last ninety days, insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721. Company insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Cisco Systems

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in CSCO. Quarry LP raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 222.4% during the 2nd quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 456 shares during the last quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 116.6% in the third quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after acquiring an additional 309 shares during the period. Highline Wealth Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 76.7% during the fourth quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $35,000 after acquiring an additional 260 shares during the last quarter. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth about $40,000. Finally, Decker Retirement Planning Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth about $49,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $60.23 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.88. Cisco Systems has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $60.95. The company has a fifty day moving average of $58.87 and a 200-day moving average of $53.43. The stock has a market capitalization of $239.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.85, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The business had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $13.78 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. The company’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the business posted $0.98 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Shareholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.66%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 68.67%.

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.