NEW YORK, Feb 16, 2026, 10:53 EST — Market closed
- U.S. stock markets will be shut Monday for Presidents Day; trading resumes Tuesday.
- Cisco Systems finished Friday’s session at $76.85 a share.
- Cisco’s recent quarterly report is once again drawing scrutiny over gross margin—rising memory costs are still squeezing it.
Cisco Systems stock is set to resume trading Tuesday, following Monday’s Presidents Day market closure. Investors continue to weigh the company’s new AI networking drive against ongoing profit headwinds. On Friday, shares ended the session at $76.85, rising 2.47%.
Why it matters now: Cisco stock slid sharply post-earnings, despite topping estimates for both revenue and profit. Investors zeroed in on shrinking gross margins—pressure’s coming from pricier memory components, a direct result of surging AI hardware demand.
Cisco has more pressure now to show it can actually benefit from AI-driven data center expansion, beyond just hyping the theme. Competition isn’t letting up, either. Nvidia and Broadcom are moving further into networking silicon, targeting the connections between big clusters of AI chips in data centers.
Cisco is pitching its Silicon One G300, a so-called “switching” chip built for the heavy demands of big AI clusters. The company says the G300 moves data at 102.4 terabits per second (Tbps), and will run inside its upcoming Cisco N9000 and 8000 series hardware. That includes models with liquid-cooling and options for more dense optics. “We are spearheading performance, manageability, and security in AI networking,” said Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s president and chief product officer. newsroom.cisco.com
Martin Lund, executive vice president at Cisco, didn’t mince words: “data movement is the key to efficient AI compute,” he said, describing the network as “part of the compute itself.” Cisco’s announcement also highlighted support from outside voices. SemiAnalysis founder Dylan Patel put it this way: “Networking has been the fundamental constraint to scaling AI.” investor.cisco.com
Cisco’s main headache: turning splashy product news into bottom-line gains. The company posted an adjusted gross margin of 67.5% for the quarter, falling short of forecasts. CEO Chuck Robbins noted Cisco had bumped up prices and was tweaking contract terms to counter higher memory costs. “Compressed margins definitely took some shine off the report,” said Jake Behan, head of capital markets at Direxion, in a note. Still, Robbins projected AI orders “in excess of $5 billion” for fiscal 2026. Reuters
Traders are clearly on edge with this name. Cisco dropped 12.32% Thursday, then clawed back some ground Friday. The stock swung from $73.42 to $77.30 during the session, as roughly 42.9 million shares were traded, according to Yahoo Finance data.
There’s a real risk here. Should component costs continue climbing, or if major cloud players pull back on capex following their AI infrastructure spree, Cisco might see fresh margin squeeze—especially with competitors dialing up their own networking offerings. Last week’s margin miss from Cisco sparked fresh nerves over the payoff from AI spending, traders said.
Investors face a busy Tuesday as the market swings back into action, with fresh macro data poised to influence both rate bets and tech valuations. U.S. retail sales and the Empire State manufacturing survey are set for release that day. Then on Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. ET, the Federal Reserve plans to publish its January meeting minutes, according to the Fed’s calendar.
After Tuesday’s restart, attention shifts to Feb. 25. Nvidia is set to post its quarterly results, and this one tends to move the needle for AI infrastructure players—especially for companies tied into the data-center pipeline like Cisco, which supplies networking equipment.
