Rosenblatt Cuts Cisco Target to $140, Keeps the Faith Anyway

Rosenblatt Securities lowered its Cisco Systems price target by $25.00, to $140.00 from $165.00, in a research note issued Friday, according to Benzinga. The brokerage kept its "buy" rating on the network equipment provider, whose shares trade on Nasdaq as CSCO. The new target implies a potential upside of 37.24% from the previous close, a figure that makes the trim look almost ceremonial.

What does the rest of the Street think?

Rosenblatt arrives late to a busy season of revisions:

• UBS Group raised its target to $138.00 from $132.00 on Thursday, August 13, with a "buy" rating.
• Truist Financial lifted its target to $140.00 from $125.00, also on August 13, rating the stock a "buy".
• Piper Sandler moved the other way, cutting its objective to $125.00 from $132.00 on Tuesday, September 22, at "neutral".
• Zacks Research upgraded the shares from "hold" to "strong-buy" on Wednesday, September 30.
• Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a "buy (b)" rating on August 26.

The tally, per MarketBeat.com: three analysts at Strong Buy, fourteen at Buy, eight at Hold. The consensus rating is "Moderate Buy" with an average target price of $128.00. Rosenblatt's reduced figure still sits comfortably above the crowd.

How did the latest quarter land?

The numbers came first and the market largely approved. CSCO opened at $102.01 on Friday, up 1.2%, against a 52-week range of $72.80 to $130.37. The company holds a market capitalization of $402.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.54, a P/E/G ratio (a valuation measure comparing the P/E to expected earnings growth) of 2.07, and a beta of 1.01.

On November 12, Cisco reported quarterly earnings of $1.40 per share, beating the consensus estimate of $1.33 by $0.07. Revenue reached $18.52 billion against analyst estimates of $18.12 billion. A year earlier the firm posted $1.00 in earnings per share, so the growth is real. The quarter carried a net margin of 20.95% and a return on equity of 30.16%.

Guidance followed the beat. Management set Q2 2027 guidance at $1.340 to $1.360 per share and full-year 2027 guidance at $5.470 to $5.530. Analysts expect $4.48 per share for the current fiscal year. The gap between those two horizons is the interesting part.

Are insiders selling?

Quietly, and by the book. EVP Thimaya K. Subaiya sold 5,832 shares on Wednesday, August 19, at an average $111.47, for a total of $650,093.04, leaving 128,382 shares worth $14,310,741.54 — a 4.35% reduction in holdings. EVP Oliver Tuszik sold 680 shares on Monday, September 14, at $110.18, worth $74,922.40, trimming his position by 0.41%. Both transactions ran under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plans (scheduled insider sales set up in advance to avoid claims of trading on privileged information), per SEC filings. Insiders sold 6,824 shares worth $759,392 over the last three months and own 0.01% of the stock.

What are institutions doing?

Small moves, uniformly upward. Cozad Asset Management added 87 shares to reach 26,203 worth $2,033,000. Dogwood Wealth Management bought 90 shares for 2,413 worth $283,000. Green Ridge Wealth Planning added 90 shares for 6,017 worth $648,000. August Group Capital bought 91 shares for 4,723 worth $555,000, and Financial Insights added 92 shares for 6,220 worth $483,000. Institutional investors own 73.33% of the company.

What sits behind the sentiment?

Executives have described a potential multi-year networking "supercycle" as companies and hyperscalers build infrastructure for agentic AI, and Cisco is adding Anthropic's Claude to its security products. The company also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.42 per share, $1.68 annualized. The caveat: share-price volatility tied partly to Nvidia-related market swings could weigh on trading despite the strong company-specific news. Cisco, which acquired Splunk in 2024, sells routers, switches, security software and Webex collaboration tools. The fundamentals cooperated; the market's nerves are another matter.