CiscoCSCOBUYNov 23, 2016Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Sep 04, 2026. Market Open.
Like Apple it was sort of a sleeper last year. It sells processes and analogue chips, very different than GPU's. Is involved in networking products and services. The AI stack explosion needed their products and technology. It is fully priced according to analysts' price targets.
Kudos on that choice, because it's not been a market darling (since the dot-com bubble). Riding coattails of stronger players in the space, catching the halo effect. The old adage: "No one ever went broke taking a profit" -- good risk management.
Prefers, and owns, ANET.
Part of IT infrastructure, but $27B acquisition of Splunk really helped drive security business. Finally hit a new high (previous high was March 27, 2000). Phenomenal allocator of capital. Compelling buy. Every year, buys back stock and raises dividend.
Finally growing revenues again, he's looking for mid-high single-digit revenue growth. AI will bring a much higher recurring revenue stream. Its solutions are so embedded in businesses, he's not worried about clients trying to go it alone with AI.
The “Internet of Things” stock. It is really going to benefit from the increase you are seeing in mobile data traffic, which is going to increase threefold through to 2019 with traditional networking traffic, which is going to go up. They have their hands in a lot of different things. The only secular concern you have is the emergence of “Software Defined Networks”, where the hardware is being decoupled from the software. Cisco really sells products where the hardware and the software are completely integrated. If that happens, you could see a little margin pressure. They are trying to address that with their product offering. Longer-term he really likes this.