Vest Financial LLC Has $39.27 Million Stock Holdings in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Vest Financial LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 7.8% in the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 663,381 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 48,272 shares during the period. Vest Financial LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $39,272,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $10,297,506,000 after acquiring an additional 3,241,682 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.3% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 95,630,469 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,075,320,000 after purchasing an additional 1,262,017 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.1% in the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 82,720,255 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $4,402,239,000 after purchasing an additional 1,677,383 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its stake in Cisco Systems by 10.1% during the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after purchasing an additional 5,885,879 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.2% during the 4th quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 18,718,195 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,107,930,000 after buying an additional 216,632 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities research analysts have recently issued reports on CSCO shares. Piper Sandler increased their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $52.00 to $57.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. BNP Paribas raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price target on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. Tigress Financial increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, October 14th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their target price for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Melius Research upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have issued a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $62.72.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

CSCO stock opened at $62.27 on Friday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1-year low of $44.50 and a 1-year high of $63.25. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $59.65 and its 200 day simple moving average is $54.87. The company has a current ratio of 0.88, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The firm has a market capitalization of $248.01 billion, a PE ratio of 26.73, a PEG ratio of 4.51 and a beta of 0.84.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion for 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 firm earned $0.98 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd were issued a dividend of $0.40 per share. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.57%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Kristina M. Johnson sold 7,500 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, December 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $59.87, for a total transaction of $449,025.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 65,915 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,946,331.05. This trade represents a 10.22 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $45,059,857.14. This represents a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 353,522 shares of company stock valued at $20,349,721. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.