SlateStone Wealth LLC Boosts Stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

SlateStone Wealth LLC raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 9.7% in the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 74,125 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 6,555 shares during the period. SlateStone Wealth LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $3,745,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Marks Group Wealth Management Inc lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.5% in the fourth quarter. Marks Group Wealth Management Inc now owns 9,658 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $488,000 after acquiring an additional 234 shares in the last quarter. Stockman Wealth Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.5% in the fourth quarter. Stockman Wealth Management Inc. now owns 215,322 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $10,878,000 after acquiring an additional 3,258 shares in the last quarter. Roble Belko & Company Inc lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 77.1% in the fourth quarter. Roble Belko & Company Inc now owns 6,405 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $324,000 after acquiring an additional 2,788 shares in the last quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System lifted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 25.0% in the fourth quarter. California Public Employees Retirement System now owns 18,750,237 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $947,262,000 after acquiring an additional 3,753,165 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Gimbal Financial acquired a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter worth about $462,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of Cisco Systems stock traded down $0.24 during midday trading on Wednesday, reaching $48.08. The company had a trading volume of 1,448,203 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,250,539. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $49.01 and a 200 day simple moving average of $50.13. The company has a market capitalization of $194.69 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.69, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.78 and a beta of 0.87. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1-year low of $45.56 and a 1-year high of $58.19. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.84 by $0.03. The business had revenue of $12.79 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $12.71 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 23.49% and a return on equity of 33.01%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned $0.76 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Investors of record on Thursday, April 4th will be paid a $0.40 dividend. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.33%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 48.63%.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages have issued reports on CSCO. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $51.00 to $52.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Bank of America upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $55.00 to $60.00 in a research report on Monday, April 15th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began coverage on Cisco Systems in a research report on Monday. They set a “neutral” rating and a $53.00 price target on the stock. UBS Group increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $54.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, February 12th. Finally, StockNews.com cut Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have issued a hold rating and six have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $55.53.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $124,850.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 58,121 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,906,050. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other Cisco Systems news, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 13,942 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $697,100.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 328,491 shares in the company, valued at $16,424,550. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $124,850.00. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 58,121 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,906,050. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 19,441 shares of company stock valued at $972,080 in the last three months. 0.02% of the stock is currently owned by company 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.