Stock analysis: Cisco soars above its peers with a score of 9

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Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO-Q) gets a score of 9 from StockReports+, and it’s jumped to a 9 rating from a 5 rating over the past nine weeks. “The recent change in the Average Score was due to an improvement in more than three of the underlying component scores, StockReports+ says.

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Earnings— Rating: 10 — The outlook for Cisco’s earnings is positive, and a 10 rating is significantly more bullish than the Communications & Networking Industry average of 5.6. Its latest earnings surprised on the upside.

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Fundamental — Rating: 7 — The outlook for Fundamentals is neutral and in-line with the market. Cisco’s Fundamental Rating declined significantly over the last quarter from 9 to 7. But its current rating is still more bullish than its industry average of 4.9. Of the 72 firms in the Communications & Networking Industry, Cisco is among the 25 companies that pay a dividend. It’s current yield is 2.9 per cent.

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Relative Valuation— Rating: 8 — The outlook is positive. Compared to the Communications & Networking Industry, Cisco is currently trading at a significant discount based on its trailing price-to-earnings ratio, forward P/E and forward P/E growth. Cisco’s trailing P/E of 16.7 represents a 13-per-cent premium to its five-year average of 14.9.

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Risk — Rating: 10 — The stock’s risk outlook is positive, meaning it has consistent return patterns and low volatility. The stock tends to move in-line with the S&P 500 composite index and over the past 90 days its stock price has been less volatile than the overall market.

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Price momentum— Rating: 7 — The outlook is neutral, and it’s perfomance is in-line with the market. As of the close of June 4, Cisco shares are currently trading 5.6 per cent below its 52-week high and 27.2 per cent above its 52-week low. They’re 0.1 per cent below their 50-day moving average of $28.64 (U.S.) and 5.3 per cent above their 200-day moving average of $27.18.

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Insider Trading — Rating: 1 — The outlook is negative. The rating of 1 is significantly more bearish than the Communications & Networking Industry average of 4.4. Since the beginning of the current quarter, sales by Cisco executives have totalled $5.92-million (U.S.). Over the past five years, the average sell total for second quarter has been $28.97-million.

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StockReports+ gives each stock an average score that combines the quantitative analysis of six widely-used investment decision-making tools: earnings, fundamentals, relative valuation, risk, price momentum and insider trading. The average score for Cisco is 9 out of 10. The current score places it within the top 15 per cent of stocks scored by StockReports+.