NEW YORK, May 31, 2026, 12:02 EDT
- Cisco finished Friday at $120.42, gaining 1.5% after reaching $121.43 earlier. Shares barely moved from $120.41 at the end of May 22, as the holiday-shortened Memorial Day week kept the stock range bound.
- Stocks rallied this week, with the Nasdaq Composite up 2.4%. The S&P 500 logged its ninth week in a row of gains.
- More tests for AI-infrastructure stocks and macro trends are on deck, with HPE reporting June 1, Broadcom on June 3, and Ciena following June 4. The U.S. payrolls report lands June 5.
Cisco Systems shares are entering June trading near their recent highs. The stock was little changed over the shortened holiday week and missed out on some of the gains from a stronger Nasdaq move. U.S. cash equities stayed closed Sunday, but Nasdaq is scheduled to open for normal trading Monday morning.
Cisco is turning into more of an AI-infrastructure play for the market now. The stock’s move up earlier this month wasn’t about routers. It was about switches, optics, and silicon—stuff used in data centers for artificial intelligence workloads.
Cisco closed Friday at $120.42, gaining from $118.64 the day before, with trading volume topping 42 million shares. Shares came near the session high of $121.43 but finished the week almost unchanged from last Friday’s close.
S&P 500 closed up 0.2% Friday, logging its ninth straight winning week. The Nasdaq gained 0.2% on the session and finished up 2.4% for the week, with demand staying solid for AI-related tech stocks.
Cisco’s main driver is its earnings report from May 13. It posted fiscal Q3 revenue of $15.8 billion, up 12% on the year, with non-GAAP EPS at $1.06. Non-GAAP strips out some costs and aims to show operating performance next to regular accounting profit.
Orders came in strong. Cisco reported total product orders up 35% from a year ago. Networking product orders jumped over 50%. AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers hit $5.3 billion fiscal year-to-date. Cisco also raised its full-year AI order estimate, now guiding to $9 billion, up from $5 billion.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins told analysts the company saw “very strong, broad-based demand” in the period, while CFO Mark Patterson pointed to “financial discipline” after Cisco topped the high end of its guidance. Looking ahead, Cisco guided for fourth-quarter revenue between $16.7 billion and $16.9 billion, and put its forecast for fiscal 2026 revenue at $62.8 billion to $63.0 billion. Cisco Investor Relations
Rosenblatt’s Mike Genovese boosted Cisco’s target to $150 from $100 after the release and left his Buy. Genovese said Cisco’s Q4 revenue guide signaled around 15% growth, with gross margins stable close to 66%.
Melius Research said Cisco’s networking business had a “clear secular tailwind from AI inference,” pointing to benefits as more AI models run at scale. Reuters said Melius connected the gain to Robbins’ push into custom silicon and optics. Reuters
Fast-moving competitive checks land soon. HPE, with its server and enterprise networking business, is set to hold its Q2 fiscal 2026 earnings call June 1. Broadcom, a big name in AI networking and semis, releases results after the bell on June 3. Ciena, which supplies optical-networking gear as high-speed data demand ramps, will report before the open June 4.
Macro is in focus for stocks as well. The main U.S. data this week is Friday’s nonfarm payrolls. It’s a key monthly jobs number that markets use to gauge growth and what the Fed might do. Marc Giannoni, chief U.S. economist at Barclays, told Kiplinger the Fed may “focus more than usual on moving averages” since recent payrolls have been jumpy. Kiplinger
Cisco has already baked tariff impacts into its margin and earnings outlook, with the company laying out a restructuring plan worth up to $1 billion in pre-tax charges. That spending shift targets silicon, optics, security and AI. But shares could lose their new AI edge if AI orders take longer to convert to revenue, component costs jump, or HPE, Broadcom or Ciena post sharper results.
Cisco is still holding onto most of its gains since earnings. What happens next may have less to do with Cisco’s comments from two weeks ago and more with whether buyers stick with the AI-infrastructure names as June trading gets going.
