Freedom Investment Management Inc. Sells 2,611 Shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Freedom Investment Management Inc. cut its position in Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 6.6% during the third quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 36,959 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after selling 2,611 shares during the quarter. Freedom Investment Management Inc.’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $1,967,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in CSCO. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.1% in the third 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 buying an additional 1,677,383 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.7% in the second quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 70,317,061 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,340,764,000 after buying an additional 1,853,598 shares during the period. FMR LLC raised its position in Cisco Systems by 10.1% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 63,931,461 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $3,402,432,000 after buying an additional 5,885,879 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc lifted its position in Cisco Systems by 3.3% during the 2nd quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 47,593,944 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $2,261,185,000 after buying an additional 1,530,468 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its position in Cisco Systems by 22.5% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 26,409,843 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,254,739,000 after purchasing an additional 4,843,146 shares during the last quarter. 73.33% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts recently weighed in on CSCO shares. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Cisco Systems in a research note on Thursday, August 15th. Wells Fargo & Company raised their price objective on Cisco Systems from $57.00 to $60.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Thursday, November 14th. Evercore ISI boosted their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $55.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, September 20th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised Cisco Systems from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and raised their price objective for the company from $55.00 to $66.00 in a report on Monday, November 11th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price target on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $64.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, November 14th. Ten investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, Cisco Systems currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $59.94.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 1.4 %

Shares of CSCO stock opened at $59.59 on Wednesday. The business has a 50-day moving average price of $55.35 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $50.32. Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 12-month low of $44.50 and a 12-month high of $59.64. The company has a quick ratio of 0.80, a current ratio of 0.88 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The firm has a market cap of $237.33 billion, a P/E ratio of 25.58, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.38 and a beta of 0.83.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last released 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. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 25.70% and a net margin of 17.73%. The company had revenue of $13.84 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $13.78 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.98 EPS. Cisco Systems’s quarterly revenue was down 5.6% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts anticipate that Cisco Systems, Inc. will post 2.97 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Cisco Systems Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Wednesday, January 22nd. Investors of record on Friday, January 3rd will be given a $0.40 dividend. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.69%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, January 3rd. Cisco Systems’s payout ratio is presently 68.67%.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 1,328 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $48.92, for a total transaction of $64,965.76. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 132,910 shares in the company, valued at $6,501,957.20. This represents a 0.99 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 171,744 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $57.49, for a total transaction of $9,873,562.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 783,786 shares in the company, valued at approximately $45,059,857.14. This trade represents a 17.97 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 339,479 shares of company stock valued at $19,490,991 over the last three months. Insiders own 0.01% of the company’s stock.

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.