Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. Makes New Investment in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Physician Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm bought 3,064 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $181,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds have also modified their holdings of CSCO. Fred Alger Management LLC grew its position in Cisco Systems by 4.7% in the third quarter. Fred Alger Management LLC now owns 105,069 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,592,000 after acquiring an additional 4,759 shares in the last quarter. ARGA Investment Management LP boosted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 22.3% in the third quarter. ARGA Investment Management LP now owns 27,986 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $1,489,000 after purchasing an additional 5,101 shares in the last quarter. Erste Asset Management GmbH acquired a new position in Cisco Systems during the third quarter worth $32,665,000. B&L Asset Management LLC bought a new position in Cisco Systems during the third quarter valued at about $412,000. Finally, FSA Wealth Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter worth about $56,000. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research analysts have recently commented on the company. Citigroup reissued an “overweight” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a report on Thursday, March 6th. Melius Research upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a report on Monday, January 6th. The Goldman Sachs Group boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 13th. DZ Bank upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, February 18th. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $66.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have assigned a buy rating and two have given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $66.63.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 2,065 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.70, for a total transaction of $125,345.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 191,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $11,604,868.80. This represents a 1.07 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 19,929 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $1,283,626.89. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 335,605 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $21,616,318.05. This represents a 5.61 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 66,547 shares of company stock worth $4,275,553 in the last three months. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:CSCO opened at $60.86 on Monday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 0.87 and a quick ratio of 0.79. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $62.11 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $58.60. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $44.50 and a fifty-two week high of $66.50. The stock has a market capitalization of $242.12 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.79.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. As a group, analysts predict that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Stockholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be issued a $0.41 dividend. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. This represents a $1.64 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.69%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 71.62%.

Cisco Systems announced that its board has approved a stock buyback plan on Wednesday, February 12th that permits the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in shares. This repurchase authorization permits the network equipment provider to purchase up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are often a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Cisco Systems 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.