Morgan Stanley Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) Stock

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) had its target price raised by investment analysts at Morgan Stanley from $77.00 to $82.00 in a research report issued on Thursday,Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “overweight” rating on the network equipment provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s target price indicates a potential upside of 5.13% from the stock’s current price.

Other equities analysts have also issued reports about the company. Erste Group Bank upgraded Cisco Systems from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Monday, November 10th. Wells Fargo & Company lifted their price target on shares of Cisco Systems from $75.00 to $83.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 14th. Piper Sandler upped their price objective on shares of Cisco Systems from $64.00 to $70.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 14th. Rosenblatt Securities lifted their target price on shares of Cisco Systems from $87.00 to $100.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Finally, HSBC reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $69.00 target price on shares of Cisco Systems in a research report on Friday, August 15th. Sixteen investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $83.75.

Cisco Systems Stock Up 0.8%

Shares of NASDAQ CSCO opened at $78.00 on Thursday. The business has a 50-day moving average of $69.87 and a 200-day moving average of $67.42. The firm has a market capitalization of $307.38 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 29.77, a PEG ratio of 3.00 and a beta of 0.95. The company has a current ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.91 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.49. Cisco Systems has a 12 month low of $52.11 and a 12 month high of $79.50.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, November 12th. The network equipment provider reported $1.00 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.98 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $14.88 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $14.77 billion. Cisco Systems had a net margin of 18.45% and a return on equity of 27.06%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 7.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $0.91 EPS. Cisco Systems has set its FY 2026 guidance at 4.080-4.140 EPS. Q2 2026 guidance at 1.010-1.030 EPS. Sell-side analysts expect that Cisco Systems will post 3.04 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Cisco Systems news, EVP Oliver Tuszik sold 17,526 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $67.95, for a total transaction of $1,190,891.70. Following the completion of the transaction, the executive vice president owned 198,855 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $13,512,197.25. This represents a 8.10% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 7,511 shares of Cisco Systems stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $66.84, for a total value of $502,035.24. Following the completion of the sale, the executive vice president owned 161,467 shares in the company, valued at approximately $10,792,454.28. This represents a 4.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders have sold 33,089 shares of company stock worth $2,236,383 in the last quarter. 0.01% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Cisco Systems

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Drive Wealth Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Cisco Systems by 2.7% during the second quarter. Drive Wealth Management LLC now owns 16,605 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,152,000 after acquiring an additional 436 shares during the last quarter. Shell Asset Management Co. boosted its stake in shares of Cisco Systems by 53.3% in the second quarter. Shell Asset Management Co. now owns 77,234 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $5,358,000 after acquiring an additional 26,840 shares during the last quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD increased its position in shares of Cisco Systems by 15.9% during the second quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 4,389,728 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock worth $304,451,000 after purchasing an additional 603,131 shares in the last quarter. Tobam raised its stake in Cisco Systems by 223.4% in the 2nd quarter. Tobam now owns 2,642 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $183,000 after purchasing an additional 1,825 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Cisco Systems by 1.2% in the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 99,252,395 shares of the network equipment provider’s stock valued at $6,864,058,000 after purchasing an additional 1,157,704 shares in the last quarter. 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.