Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is ending 2025 with a story investors haven’t been able to ignore: the company is back near its highs, powered by accelerating AI-era networking demand and a broad push to fuse networking, security, and observability into one platform narrative. On Monday, December 22, 2025, CSCO traded around $78 per share, giving Cisco a market value of roughly $310 billion—still below its 52‑week peak, but close enough to make “what next?” the only real question on the tape.
But today’s Cisco story has two sharp edges:
- Tailwinds: hyperscaler AI orders, a campus networking refresh cycle, and expanding recurring revenue metrics.
- Headwinds: a newly spotlighted critical zero‑day impacting Cisco email security appliances, plus the classic late‑cycle problem—valuation after a strong run.
Below is a comprehensive round-up of the key headlines, forecasts, and market narratives shaping Cisco stock as of 22.12.2025.
What’s driving Cisco stock today (Dec. 22, 2025)
Several pieces of coverage and datapoints are converging on the same theme: CSCO is being treated less like a slow-and-steady legacy network vendor and more like an AI infrastructure beneficiary—with analysts debating how much of that optimism is already in the price.
1) Cisco is “trending” again as estimates move up
Zacks flagged Cisco as a heavily watched name today, highlighting earnings estimate revisions and projecting ~$1.02 EPS for the current quarter (with modest upward movement in consensus estimates), alongside consensus revenue expectations around $15.12B for the quarter. [1]
2) Morgan Stanley’s bull case: AI infrastructure broadens beyond semiconductors
A widely-circulated note (picked up in multiple outlets) points to Morgan Stanley raising its price target to $91 from $82 and maintaining an Overweight stance—framing Cisco as a beneficiary of AI infrastructure spend spreading from chips into networking and optics. [2]
3) Ownership and positioning: institutions add, insiders sell
A MarketBeat roundup today highlighted an institutional position increase (one specific filer) while also emphasizing recent insider selling activity across multiple transactions. [3]
The big bull catalyst: AI networking demand is becoming “real revenue,” not just buzz
The cleanest explanation for Cisco’s momentum is that AI is forcing real-world network rebuilds—data centers, campus networks, and edge environments all need more throughput, better telemetry, and (ideally) more automated security.
Cisco’s own commentary and reporting over the last quarter put hard numbers behind that shift:
- Cisco disclosed $1.3B in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers in fiscal Q1 2026 (quarter ended Oct. 25, 2025). [4]
- Reuters reported Cisco had secured more than $2B in AI orders in fiscal 2025, and that management expects $3B in AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers in fiscal 2026, alongside a >$2B pipeline for high-performance networking products across sovereign, neocloud, and enterprise customers. [5]
This matters to equity investors because networking tends to be viewed as a “mature” category—Cisco’s upside typically comes from new cycles. The AI buildout looks like exactly that: a spending cycle with urgency, scale, and multi-year digestion.
Cisco earnings snapshot: what the company last reported and guided
Cisco’s most recent official results (fiscal Q1 2026) were strong on the headline numbers:
- Revenue:$14.9B, up 8% YoY
- EPS:GAAP $0.72; Non‑GAAP $1.00
- Cisco also described a major multi‑year, multi‑billion‑dollar campus networking refresh cycle and faster ramp in next‑gen solutions (including WiFi 7) versus prior launches. [6]
Guidance (what Cisco is forecasting)
From that same earnings release:
- Q2 FY2026 guidance: revenue $15.0B–$15.2B; non‑GAAP EPS $1.01–$1.03
- FY2026 guidance: revenue $60.2B–$61.0B; non‑GAAP EPS $4.08–$4.14
- Cisco explicitly noted that margin/EPS guidance includes the estimated impact of tariffs based on current trade policy. [7]
Shareholder returns: dividends and buybacks remain a “floor”
Cisco continues to behave like a mega-cap cash-return machine:
- Quarterly dividend:$0.41/share, payable Jan. 21, 2026, to holders of record Jan. 2, 2026. [8]
- Q1 FY2026 capital return:$3.6B total (dividends + buybacks). Cisco reported repurchasing ~29M shares at an average $68.28 and stated $12.2B remained authorized for repurchases. [9]
For CSCO holders, that combination—earnings growth + buybacks + dividend—is the classic “compounding utility belt,” especially when markets get choppy.
Analyst forecasts: price targets, ratings, and where the consensus sits
Cisco’s rally has pulled analyst targets upward, but not all in the same direction.
The Morgan Stanley headline
Multiple outlets report Morgan Stanley lifting Cisco’s price target to $91 while staying Overweight, explicitly tying the move to AI infrastructure demand and the broadening of the AI trade into adjacent infrastructure categories (including optical networking). [10]
The broader Street consensus (as of Dec. 22, 2025)
MarketBeat’s compilation shows:
- Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy”
- Average 12‑month price target: about $84.55
- High end:$100 (varies by firm)
- Low end: in the $60s (varies by firm) [11]
Investing.com’s consensus estimate is in a similar neighborhood, showing an average target around the mid‑$80s and listing recent firm-by-firm targets (including Morgan Stanley’s $91). [12]
A key nuance investors are debating
The bullish view isn’t “Cisco becomes Nvidia.” It’s subtler: Cisco captures a meaningful slice of AI infrastructure spend (Ethernet switching, optics, routing, security), which can be enough to justify a re-rating—but only if growth stays durable.
That durability question is why some research frames CSCO as a hold at current levels, citing valuation stretch after the run-up. [13]
The risk story that won’t go away this week: a critical Cisco zero‑day (CVE‑2025‑20393)
While Cisco stock discussions often center on AI and capital returns, cybersecurity events can create sudden headline risk—especially when they involve active exploitation.
What we know (as of Dec. 22, 2025)
Cisco Talos described an active campaign targeting Cisco AsyncOS used in:
- Cisco Secure Email Gateway (formerly ESA)
- Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager (formerly SMA)
Talos attributed the activity (with moderate confidence) to a China‑nexus actor tracked as UAT‑9686, and detailed tooling including AquaShell persistence, plus tunneling and log‑purge utilities. Cisco became aware of the activity on Dec. 10, and Talos says it had been ongoing since at least late November 2025. [14]
NIST’s National Vulnerability Database entry lists the issue as CVSS 10.0 (Critical) and indicates it is included in CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog, with a listed due date of Dec. 24, 2025 for required action guidance. [15]
Industry reporting also emphasized that exposure appears concentrated in appliances with specific configurations (e.g., spam quarantine exposure) and that remediation may involve rebuild/hardening steps depending on compromise status. [16]
Why this matters for the stock (even if Cisco isn’t “at fault” in a moral sense)
For investors, the risk isn’t just technical—it’s behavioral and financial:
- Security headlines can delay purchasing decisions for affected product families.
- They can increase support costs and pull forward unplanned remediation work for customers.
- They add a reputational tax right when Cisco is marketing itself as the company that helps organizations “connect and protect” in the AI era.
This does not automatically translate into a fundamental thesis break. But it does raise the near-term “noise level,” which matters when a stock is priced for optimism.
Valuation and fundamentals: the market is rewarding Cisco, but asking for proof
Cisco is not trading like a distressed turnaround. It’s trading like a mature mega-cap that may be entering a new cycle. That’s good news—until valuation gets ahead of execution.
A Zacks analysis published on Nasdaq in mid‑December noted Cisco trading close to its 52‑week high (around $80.82, hit Dec. 10) after a strong trailing run, while also arguing the stock looked overvalued on certain metrics (including price‑to‑sales) and assigning a less favorable value score—even as it acknowledged the AI and security narrative strength. [17]
As of Dec. 22, market data shows Cisco around $78 with a trailing P/E near ~29 (depending on the data feed and earnings basis used).
In plain English: Cisco can still go up—but it has less room for “meh” quarters without the stock reacting.
What to watch next: the specific catalysts that could move CSCO
Here are the upcoming signposts that matter more than vibes:
1) Next earnings date and forward guidance resets
Cisco indicated its next quarterly results call is scheduled for February 11, 2026. [18]
Given how much of the re-rating is tied to AI infrastructure, investors will likely focus on:
- AI order momentum (hyperscaler + non-hyperscaler)
- Campus switching/wireless refresh pace
- Security platform growth consistency
- Margin discipline and tariff impacts
2) Security remediation narrative
For the CVE‑2025‑20393 situation, markets tend to re-price risk based on:
- clarity of exposure (“how many customers?”)
- speed/availability of fixes and mitigations
- evidence of material customer impact
NVD’s listing and Talos’s technical write-up make this one hard to ignore in the short term. [19]
3) Capital returns: dividend + buyback cadence
With a $0.41 quarterly dividend and ongoing repurchases, Cisco’s shareholder return policy can soften drawdowns—especially if the broader market turns volatile. [20]
Bottom line for Cisco (CSCO) stock on Dec. 22, 2025
Cisco is ending 2025 in a rare position for a “legacy” tech giant: the market is rewarding it for being a credible infrastructure player in the AI era, not merely a stable dividend payer.
The optimistic case rests on three legs:
- AI infrastructure spend converts into sustained orders and revenue
- A multi-year campus refresh cycle continues to accelerate
- Cisco’s platform story (network + security + observability) drives more recurring revenue and stickiness
The caution case is equally clear:
- Security headlines (like the current critical zero‑day) can create near-term uncertainty
- Competition in high-performance networking remains fierce
- After a strong run, valuation makes execution risk more expensive
That’s the tension inside CSCO right now—and it’s exactly why the next guidance update, plus any clarity around the security situation, could matter as much as the AI narrative itself.
References
1. finviz.com, 2. www.insidermonkey.com, 3. www.marketbeat.com, 4. investor.cisco.com, 5. www.reuters.com, 6. investor.cisco.com, 7. investor.cisco.com, 8. investor.cisco.com, 9. investor.cisco.com, 10. www.insidermonkey.com, 11. www.marketbeat.com, 12. www.investing.com, 13. www.nasdaq.com, 14. blog.talosintelligence.com, 15. nvd.nist.gov, 16. www.techradar.com, 17. www.nasdaq.com, 18. s2.q4cdn.com, 19. nvd.nist.gov, 20. investor.cisco.com
