Castle Wealth Management LLC Increases Position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Castle Wealth Management LLC increased its stake in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 26.4% in the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 22,173 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 4,633 shares during the period. Castle Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,120,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 2.2% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 184,879,450 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $9,664,544,000 after purchasing an additional 4,061,022 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 17.4% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 61,788,267 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,943,593,000 after purchasing an additional 9,160,347 shares during the last quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC lifted its stake in Cisco Systems by 112,307.0% in the fourth quarter. Moneta Group Investment Advisors LLC now owns 59,519,500 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,835,509,000 after purchasing an additional 59,466,550 shares during the last quarter. FMR LLC raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 3.2% during the third quarter. FMR LLC now owns 57,102,221 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,069,815,000 after acquiring an additional 1,790,717 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 6.1% during the first quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 53,356,141 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,975,139,000 after acquiring an additional 3,087,294 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently commented on CSCO. Melius downgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, January 8th. StockNews.com downgraded shares of Cisco Systems from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, February 15th. Bank of America raised shares of Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $55.00 to $60.00 in a research note on Monday. Melius Research reissued a “hold” rating and issued a $55.00 price target on shares of Cisco Systems in a research note on Monday, January 8th. Finally, UBS Group increased their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $54.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, February 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, thirteen have assigned a hold rating and seven have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $56.03.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $124,850.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 58,121 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,906,050. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. In other news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $124,850.00. Following the sale, the senior vice president now directly owns 58,121 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,906,050. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Richard Scott Herren sold 13,942 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total transaction of $697,100.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer now owns 328,491 shares in the company, valued at $16,424,550. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders have sold 19,441 shares of company stock worth $972,080. Company insiders own 0.02% of the company’s stock.

Cisco Systems Stock Performance

CSCO stock traded up $0.21 on Friday, hitting $48.32. The company had a trading volume of 20,962,402 shares, compared to its average volume of 19,502,734. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $45.56 and a 12-month high of $58.19. The company has a current ratio of 1.37, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $49.07 and its 200 day simple moving average is $50.25. The stock has a market cap of $195.66 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 14.69, a P/E/G ratio of 2.74 and a beta of 0.87.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.87 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.84 by $0.03. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 23.49% and a return on equity of 33.01%. The company had revenue of $12.79 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $12.71 billion. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.76 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 3.14 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, April 24th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, April 4th will be given a $0.40 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Wednesday, April 3rd. This is an increase from Cisco Systems’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.39. This represents a $1.60 annualized dividend and a yield of 3.31%. Cisco Systems’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 48.63%.

Cisco Systems Company 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.