Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline Friday, February 12, 2021

Article Excerpt

CISCO SYSTEMS INC., $47.29, Nasdaq symbol CSCO, is a buy. Through the stock, investors tap a global producer of hardware and software that links and manages computer networks. The company reported better-than-expected results for its latest quarter. However, corporate clients are putting off new purchases of networking equipment as many employees work remotely due to COVID-19. That’s mainly why the stock fell 5% this week. Even so, the work-from-home trend continues to spur demand for Cisco’s WebEx video-conferencing software. In its fiscal 2021 second quarter, ended January 23, 2021, revenue declined 0.4%, to $11.96 billion from $12.01 billion a year earlier. That still beat the consensus forecast of $11.86 billion. Overall earnings in the quarter improved 2.3%, to $3.36 billion from $3.29 billion. The company spent $801 million on share repurchases in the quarter; as a result, earnings per share gained 2.6%, to $0.79 from $0.77. Those figures exclude costs to integrate recent acquisitions and other unusual items. On that basis, the latest earnings exceeded the…