Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. Boosts Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc. lifted its position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 0.1% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 316,152 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 379 shares during the quarter. Farmers & Merchants Investments Inc.’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $18,716,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. State Street Corp grew its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 1.7% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 193,489,477 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $10,297,506,000 after purchasing an additional 3,241,682 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its stake in 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 buying an additional 1,262,017 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake 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 acquiring an additional 1,677,383 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $3,402,432,000 after acquiring an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Nordea Investment Management AB boosted its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 216,632 shares during the period. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

NASDAQ:CSCO 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 stock has a market cap of $248.01 billion, a P/E ratio of 26.73, a P/E/G ratio of 4.51 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. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $59.71 and a 200-day simple moving average of $54.98.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 EPS 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 firm’s revenue was down 5.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. As a group, analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd were given a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.57%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 68.67%.

Insider Buying and Selling at Cisco Systems

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 4,881 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred 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 directly owns 51,931 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,101,838.63. This represents a 8.59 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 86,351 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $4,964,318.99. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 365,314 shares in the company, valued at $21,001,901.86. The trade was a 19.12 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have issued reports on CSCO. Tigress Financial boosted their target price on Cisco Systems from $76.00 to $78.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, October 14th. Bank of America increased 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. StockNews.com raised Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Piper Sandler increased their price target 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. Finally, Barclays lifted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $49.00 to $56.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Thursday, November 14th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, thirteen have given a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $62.72.

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.