CiscoCSCOCOMMENTMar 21, 2017Stock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jun 08, 2026. Market Open.
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.
Mostly hardware, but also getting into software security. It's finally gotten back to its breakeven price from the year 2000 :) Climbing higher, up 23% in last 12 months. Not on his buy list. He owns FIX, LRCX, and ADI. His tech exposure is ~10-20%.
Should do well. Only downside questions are whether it can keep up with demand, and whether it will be the prime provider within data centres? If they have the upper hand and pricing power, great. If not, they'll just trundle along with everybody else.
Lately, it's been getting new clients from competitors. It's been putting up stellar quarters. It had a strong 2025, but got hammered in December, surprisingly. But it is bouncing off lows. The On Balance Volume only now is moving higher. Lang thinks the sell off is ending. A few good days should see this rise, returning to its $80 highs, then up to $100 later this year.
Another play in Edge AI. Kinetic for Cities is Edge AI that you can put on sensors around a city for water, traffic, air, everything. Poster child for this application is Singapore. King of routers and switches, but Edge AI will be very intriguing for them. His 12-month price target is $75.50. Yield is 2.44%.
(Analysts’ price target is $71.54)
He is thematically focused, and tries to find themes where something is changing for the better, where investors can make returns and get a multiple expansion in the stocks they own. A key theme in this market are some of the large cap technology stocks that generate tons of cash, and return some to shareholders. This one generates a free cash flow yield of about 7%. Pays a 3.4% dividend, and has been growing it north of 15%, and likely will for the next 5 years. Generates a lot of cash and their commitment is to return 50% of that to shareholders. This is the supplier of gear that is connecting all the Cloud infrastructure together, and that is not slowing down anytime soon.