Cisco's Positive Outlook

By Neil Zawacki
Updated: May 01, 2012

Cisco's Positive Outlook

Cisco, one of the nation’s leading technology companies, will be releasing its fourth quarter and year end earnings on August 11, 2011. The stock has traded below $14.40 over the last week and went as low as $14.27 on Monday morning. That represents a full $10.60 difference from its 52-week high of $24.87.

Industry analysts predict that the EPS (earnings per share) for Cisco will range somewhere between 31 cents to 42 cents for the financial quarter. If a consensus is reached at 38 cents, that will be 4 cents less than the EPS from a year ago. They also predict an overall $1.60 EPS for the fiscal year.

George Notter, an employee of Jefferies & Co, spoke briefly about public expectations for the results. He stated, “While the stock is cheap, it’s very early days in the company’s restructuring efforts—the company hasn’t yet addressed much the restructuring that’s necessary in our view. We believe that there’s significant inertia in the business and believe the outlook for the business can get worse.”

Despite this fear, Jefferies & Co stated in a research note that Cisco’s enterprise business is likely to be “decent” and that it will probably make up approximately 60% of Cisco’s sales for 2011.

John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, is expected to spend a majority of Thursday’s phone call discussing potential ways to trim $1 billion in corporate expenses. He is also likely to face pushback from investors on sales, increased competition and price cuts in the switching gear market.
 

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