Valeo Financial Advisors LLC Buys 322 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Valeo Financial Advisors LLC grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 0.3% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The institutional investor owned 95,732 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 322 shares during the quarter. Valeo Financial Advisors LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $5,667,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Morse Asset Management Inc bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems during the third quarter valued at about $798,000. HighVista Strategies LLC bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth about $1,698,000. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 13.1% in the fourth quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 93,357 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,527,000 after purchasing an additional 10,813 shares during the last quarter. Oddo BHF Asset Management Sas bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth about $502,000. Finally, Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI grew its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.9% in the third quarter. Commerzbank Aktiengesellschaft FI now owns 1,658,417 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $88,261,000 after purchasing an additional 162,544 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cisco Systems news, Director Kristina M. Johnson sold 7,500 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.87, for a total value of $449,025.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 65,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,946,331.05. The trade was a 10.22 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the company’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 sale, the senior vice president now 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 disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 37,239 shares of company stock worth $2,166,612 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

CSCO stock opened at $64.87 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day moving average price of $59.97 and a 200-day moving average price of $55.42. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52-week low of $44.50 and a 52-week high of $66.50. The firm has a market capitalization of $258.36 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 27.84, a PEG ratio of 4.63 and a beta of 0.84. 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 (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a net margin of 17.73% and a return on equity of 25.70%. Equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems announced that its Board of Directors has initiated a share buyback program on Wednesday, February 12th that allows the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization allows the network equipment provider to buy up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are often a sign that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Investors of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be issued a $0.41 dividend. 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 yield of 2.53%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, April 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several research firms recently issued reports on CSCO. Bank of America raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Piper Sandler raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday. Barclays raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $61.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday. Citigroup raised their target price on Cisco Systems from $68.00 to $71.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Friday. Seven investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and three have issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Cisco Systems presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $66.53.

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.