Cisco Systems

CSCO

Communication Equipment · Technology

Price

$111.94

+2.28 (+2.08%)

Market Cap

$441.20B

Exchange

NASDAQ

Winston Score

Winston is curious

Mixed quality — meaningful strengths and weaknesses.

Share count falling — buybacks

−5.6% over 4y

The company has reduced its share count over this period, returning value to shareholders through buybacks.

Diluted shares outstanding: 4.24B (2021) → 4.00B (2025)

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 con

Winston Score History

Politician Trades

27 trades / 12mo

17 Congressional buys and 10 sells on CSCO in the last 12 months.

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Growth Profile

For growth stock investors

When traditional metrics don't capture the full picture, these are the signals growth stock investors use instead.

Revenue Growth

+9.7% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Slow revenue growth

EPS Growth

+32.8% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

EPS growth accelerating

R&D Spend

$9.3B/ year

↑ Rising (+16% vs prior year)

16.4% of revenue

In line with sector average (15%)

Investing heavily in future products and technology

Insider Activity

0.2%ownership

→ Flat

Insiders holding steady — not selling despite ability to

Cash Position

Cash flow positive

$7.5B cash & investments

Quarterly Free Cash Flow

↓ Burn rate worsening

Company generates more cash than it spends — no dilution risk from fundraising

Heavy R&D investment

Cisco Systems is putting 16% of revenue into R&D and that number is rising. And they're generating enough cash to self-fund it.

The Winston Score above measures business quality today. Growth stocks often score lower because they invest in the future rather than maximising current profits. These metrics show what matters most for evaluating that future.

Score breakdown

Every number that matters to educated investors.

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Quality

Gross Margin

65.0%

Premium pricing power — 65.0% gross margin

Operating Margin

24.6%

Excellent — 24.6% operating margin

ROCE

4.9%

Weak — 4.9% return on capital

ROIC between 0% and 5%. They earn a few cents back per dollar invested in the business.

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Growth

Sales YoY

+7.7%

Steady sales growth (7.7% YoY)

EPS YoY

+13.0%

Earnings growing (13.0% YoY)

Healthy double-digit earnings growth — what compounders look like.

EPS Consistency

6/8 quarters

Earnings grew in most of the last 8 quarters

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Cash Flow

Cash Conversion

116%

Turns 116% of profit into real cash

FCF Margin

19.5%

Converts sales into free cash efficiently (19.5%)

FCF margin between 10% and 20%. Every $100 in sales becomes $10 to $20 in real cash.

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Stability

Debt / Equity

0.63

Moderate — manageable debt (0.63)

Interest Cover

8.53x

Comfortably covers interest (8.5x)

Interest coverage above 8. Profits cover interest many times over.

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Valuation

P/E Ratio (TTM)

41.6x

Pricey — P/E 41.6

P/E over 35. The market is pricing in heavy, sustained growth.

P/E vs Forward

+15.0

GROWING

Earnings expected to grow meaningfully — cheaper on forward P/E (41.6 → 26.6)

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Dividends

Dividend Yield

1.45%

Small dividend — 1.45% yield

Modest yield. The bulk of any return needs to come from price appreciation.

Dividend Growth

+2.5%

Dividend flat

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