Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp Has $42.03 Million Stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp cut its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 0.6% during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund owned 709,991 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 4,252 shares during the period. Peapack Gladstone Financial Corp’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $42,032,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other large investors have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Norges Bank acquired a new stake in Cisco Systems in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $3,297,905,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in shares of Cisco Systems in the 4th quarter worth $560,722,000. National Bank of Canada FI grew its position in Cisco Systems by 79.6% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 8,971,494 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $477,463,000 after purchasing an additional 3,975,028 shares during the period. Alliancebernstein L.P. increased its stake in Cisco Systems by 50.3% during the 4th quarter. Alliancebernstein L.P. now owns 6,627,956 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $392,375,000 after purchasing an additional 2,219,311 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 18.0% during the fourth quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership now owns 13,880,257 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $821,711,000 after buying an additional 2,114,994 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Melius Research raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, January 6th. StockNews.com downgraded Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. DZ Bank raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 18th. UBS Group increased their price target on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, BNP Paribas raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $72.00 price objective on the stock in a report on Tuesday, January 28th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $66.63.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

Shares of CSCO opened at $54.54 on Friday. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 1 year low of $44.50 and a 1 year high of $66.50. 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 stock’s fifty day moving average price is $61.91 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $58.87. The firm has a market cap of $216.98 billion, a PE ratio of 23.82, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.86.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, February 12th. The network equipment provider reported $0.77 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.91 by ($0.14). Cisco Systems had a net margin of 16.96% and a return on equity of 26.08%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.04 EPS for the current year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 23rd. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 3rd will be issued a dividend of $0.41 per share. This is a boost from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.40. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 3rd. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.01%. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 71.62%.

Cisco Systems declared that its board has authorized a stock buyback program on Wednesday, February 12th that authorizes the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network equipment provider to repurchase up to 6% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase programs are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its shares are undervalued.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other 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 value of $125,345.50. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 191,184 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $11,604,868.80. This represents a 1.07 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, February 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $2,060,025.03. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 736,120 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $47,413,489.20. This represents a 4.16 % decrease in their position. 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 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

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.