Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) to Issue $0.41 Quarterly Dividend

Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) announced a quarterly dividend on Wednesday, May 14th, RTT News reports. Shareholders of record on Thursday, July 3rd will be given a dividend of 0.41 per share by the network equipment provider on Wednesday, July 23rd. This represents a $1.64 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.68%.

Cisco Systems has raised its dividend payment by an average of 2.6% per year over the last three years and has increased its dividend every year for the last 13 years. Cisco Systems has a dividend payout ratio of 41.2% meaning its dividend is sufficiently covered by earnings. Equities analysts expect Cisco Systems to earn $3.21 per share next year, which means the company should continue to be able to cover its $1.64 annual dividend with an expected future payout ratio of 51.1%.

Cisco Systems Price Performance

Shares of Cisco Systems stock opened at $61.29 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $243.83 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 26.76, a PEG ratio of 4.16 and a beta of 0.89. The company has a quick ratio of 0.79, a current ratio of 0.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $58.65 and its 200-day simple moving average is $59.54. Cisco Systems has a 52 week low of $44.50 and a 52 week high of $66.50.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, May 14th. The network equipment provider reported $0.96 EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.91 by $0.05. Cisco Systems had a return on equity of 26.08% and a net margin of 16.96%. The company had revenue of $14.15 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $14.05 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.88 EPS. As a group, analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

CSCO has been the subject of several research analyst reports. Piper Sandler cut their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $72.00 to $60.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, April 8th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $73.00 to $70.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, April 17th. StockNews.com cut Cisco Systems from a “strong-buy” rating to a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, March 5th. UBS Group boosted their target price on Cisco Systems from $62.00 to $70.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Thursday, February 13th. Finally, Citigroup cut their price target on Cisco Systems from $73.00 to $68.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, April 14th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fifteen have issued a buy rating and two have assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, Cisco Systems has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $65.05.

Cisco Systems declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase program on Wednesday, February 12th that authorizes the company to repurchase $15.00 billion in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the network equipment provider to buy up to 6% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are typically a sign that the company’s board believes its shares are undervalued.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Maria Victoria Wong sold 762 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.99, for a total transaction of $46,474.38. Following the transaction, the senior vice president now directly owns 44,155 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,693,013.45. This represents a 1.70% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Charles Robbins sold 31,983 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.41, for a total transaction of $2,060,025.03. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 736,120 shares in the company, valued at $47,413,489.20. This trade represents a 4.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 66,547 shares of company stock worth $4,275,553 over the last three months. 0.01% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A hedge fund recently raised its stake in Cisco Systems stock. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) by 37.0% in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 9,156 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 2,474 shares during the quarter. Revolve Wealth Partners LLC’s holdings in Cisco Systems were worth $542,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 73.33% of the company’s stock.

About Cisco Systems

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.