Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) Plans Quarterly Dividend of $0.40

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) declared a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 15th, RTT News reports. Investors of record on Friday, July 5th will be given a dividend of 0.40 per share by the network equipment provider on Wednesday, July 24th. This represents a $1.60 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.22%.

Cisco Systems has raised its dividend by an average of 2.7% annually over the last three years and has raised its dividend annually for the last 13 consecutive years. Cisco Systems has a payout ratio of 42.8% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Analysts expect Cisco Systems to earn $3.10 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.60 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 51.6%.

Cisco Systems Trading Up 1.5 %

Cisco Systems stock opened at $49.67 on Thursday. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $48.73 and its 200-day simple moving average is $49.56. Cisco Systems has a 52 week low of $45.70 and a 52 week high of $58.19. The firm has a market capitalization of $201.12 billion, a PE ratio of 15.10, a PEG ratio of 2.81 and a beta of 0.87. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.14, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 1.37.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 15th. The network equipment provider reported $0.88 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.70 by $0.18. The company had revenue of $12.70 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $12.53 billion. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 33.01% and a net margin of 23.49%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 12.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $0.88 earnings per share. Equities research analysts forecast that Cisco Systems will post 3.13 earnings per share for the current year.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on the stock. UBS Group lifted 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. JPMorgan Chase & Co. initiated coverage on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Monday, April 22nd. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $53.00 price target for the company. BNP Paribas upgraded shares of Cisco Systems from an “underperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and set a $50.00 price target for the company in a research note on Monday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Cisco Systems from $51.00 to $52.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, April 9th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company initiated coverage on Cisco Systems in a research report on Thursday, February 15th. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $52.00 target price for the company. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, fourteen have assigned a hold rating and seven have given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.81.

Insider Activity

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 3,002 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 13th. The stock was sold at an average price of $50.01, for a total value of $150,130.02. Following the sale, the executive vice president now owns 191,559 shares in the company, valued at approximately $9,579,865.59. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Deborah L. Stahlkopf sold 3,002 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.01, for a total transaction of $150,130.02. Following the sale, the executive vice president now directly owns 191,559 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,579,865.59. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 2,497 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 13th. The shares were sold at an average price of $50.00, for a total value of $124,850.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 58,121 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,906,050. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 19,441 shares of company stock worth $972,080 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 0.02% 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.