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Cisco Systems Inc. shares closed higher for the seventh consecutive trading session on Monday, their longest winning streak in more than three years.
Shares of the networking-technology company have gained 10.9% during the streak, and hit a 52-week intraday high of $49.44 Monday before closing at $49.41, a daily increase of 1.2%. It is their longest winning streak since they rose for nine consecutive trading days in July of 2017.
The streak began on March 5, which was when JPMorgan Chase analyst Samik Chatterjee upgraded Cisco CSCO, +1.21% stock from overweight to neutral on his expectation, based on a Gartner forecast, that enterprise information-technology spending is poised to exceed expectations after some companies paused spending last year.
Chatterjee also singled out Cisco’s on-track transformation to subscriptions, as well as what he called the San Jose, Calif.-based company’s “still inexpensive valuation following underperformance to peers.” The competition he mentioned: F5 Networks Inc. FFIV, +1.28%, Dell Technologies Inc. DELL, +0.54%, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. HPE, +1.52%, HP Inc. HPQ, +1.68% and Xerox Holdings Corp. XRX, -3.16%
Cisco stock has increased 31.3% in the past 12 months, as the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.65% has gained 45.5% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.53% — which counts Cisco as a component — has risen 41.4%. Analysts are pretty evenly split on whether to buy or hold the stock, with 12 of 26 analysts tracked by FactSet rating shares the equivalent of a buy, and the other 14 calling it a hold. The average price target on the stock is $51.90.
