Contravisory Investment Management Inc. Buys Shares of 8,378 Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Contravisory Investment Management Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) during the fourth quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor acquired 8,378 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $496,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the stock. Quarry LP raised its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 222.4% in the second quarter. Quarry LP now owns 661 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $31,000 after purchasing an additional 456 shares during the period. West Financial Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 116.6% in the 3rd quarter. West Financial Advisors LLC now owns 574 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 309 shares during the period. Highline Wealth Partners LLC raised its holdings in Cisco Systems by 76.7% in the 4th quarter. Highline Wealth Partners LLC now owns 599 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $35,000 after acquiring an additional 260 shares during the period. RPg Family Wealth Advisory LLC bought a new stake in Cisco Systems during the third quarter valued at about $40,000. Finally, Capital Performance Advisors LLP acquired a new stake in shares of Cisco Systems in the third quarter valued at about $51,000. 73.33% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on CSCO shares. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and boosted their price objective for the stock from $55.00 to $66.00 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Citigroup increased their price objective on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Bank of America raised their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $60.00 to $72.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Finally, UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $62.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Eight investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, twelve have assigned a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $61.28.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of CSCO stock opened at $59.98 on Thursday. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $58.79 and its 200-day moving average is $53.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a quick ratio of 0.80 and a current ratio of 0.88. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $60.34. The stock has a market capitalization of $238.89 billion, a PE ratio of 25.74, a PEG ratio of 4.37 and a beta of 0.85.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, November 13th. The network equipment provider reported $0.91 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.87 by $0.04. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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 previous year, the firm posted $0.98 earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Stockholders of record on Friday, January 3rd will be paid a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, January 3rd. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.67%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 68.67%.

Insider Transactions at Cisco Systems

In related news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 586 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $58.69, for a total transaction of $34,392.34. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 50,767 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,979,515.23. The trade was a 1.14 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on 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 transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. The trade was a 17.97 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 353,522 shares of company stock worth $20,349,721 over the last 90 days. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

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.