Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) just did something it hasn’t managed since the days of dial‑up modems and frosted tips.
On December 10, 2025, Cisco closed at a new all‑time high of $80.25, up 0.93% on the day, finally surpassing its dot‑com bubble peak from March 2000. [1]
In after-hours trading, the stock edged even higher, changing hands in the high‑$80s around $80.7, roughly another 0.5–0.6% above the close. [2]
Year to date, Cisco is now up roughly 36% in 2025, on track for its best year since 2009, and has re‑entered the market’s AI‑infrastructure spotlight in a big way. [3]
Here’s what actually moved the stock on December 10, what the latest forecasts and analyses are saying, and what matters most before the U.S. market opens on December 11, 2025.
1. Price Action: New Record, Firm After Hours
Regular session – December 10, 2025
Dow Jones / Morningstar’s “Data Talk” note flagged that $80.25 is Cisco’s highest closing price on record in data going back to 1990. [6]
Barron’s and Bloomberg both framed the move as Cisco finally clearing its dot‑com era peak after more than 25 years, powered by AI‑related data‑center demand rather than the router‑mania of 1999. [7]
After hours – evening of December 10
- Public.com’s after‑hours tape shows CSCO at $80.67, up 0.52% vs the close. [8]
- Yahoo Finance’s real‑time quote showed the stock around $80.76, up 0.64% as of 7:37 p.m. ET. [9]
The message from the tape: no blow‑off spike, but a steady bid above the new record into the evening – which usually suggests institutions are still comfortable owning the breakout.
2. Why Cisco Is Rallying: AI Infrastructure + Raised Guidance
The December 10 move doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it sits on top of a multi‑month re‑rating driven by AI infrastructure orders and upgraded guidance.
Q4 FY 2025: AI orders doubled expectations
In August, Cisco reported Q4 FY 2025 revenue of $14.7 billion, up 8% year‑on‑year, and FY 2025 revenue of $56.7 billion, up 5%. [10]
The show‑stopper:
- AI infrastructure orders from “webscale” (hyperscale) customers exceeded $800 million in Q4, bringing FY 2025 AI infra orders to more than $2 billion, more than double its original $1 billion target. [11]
Management used the earnings release to argue that Cisco is now one of the core plumbing suppliers for AI data centers, not just an aging campus‑switch vendor. [12]
Q1 FY 2026: AI demand lifts outlook again
On November 12, 2025, Cisco reported Q1 FY 2026 results that beat expectations and triggered another guidance hike: [13]
- Revenue: $14.9 billion, +8% YoY
- Non‑GAAP EPS: $1.00 (above consensus ~$0.98)
- AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers: about $1.3 billion in Q1 alone
- Management now expects roughly $3 billion of AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers in FY 2026, with an AI orders pipeline projected to reach about $4 billion. [14]
- Cisco raised FY 2026 guidance to $60.2–$61.0 billion in revenue and adjusted EPS of $4.08–$4.14, above the earlier $59–$60 billion and $4.00–$4.06 ranges. [15]
Third‑party analysts have echoed this narrative. Futurum Group and others described Q1 as a “beat and raise” quarter explicitly powered by AI networking, noting double‑digit growth in networking and five consecutive quarters of strong AI‑linked orders. [16]
Splunk and AI observability
Beyond routers and optics, Cisco is also trying to become the AI “nervous system” for applications via its acquisition of Splunk:
- Cisco and Splunk have been rolling out “AI‑driven unified observability” offerings, blending Cisco networking telemetry with Splunk’s logs and traces to monitor complex AI workloads end‑to‑end. [17]
The Splunk integration is important context for December’s rally because it makes Cisco look less like “just hardware” and more like a software‑and‑services platform tied directly to AI operations.
Asiacell: a fresh AI networking proof‑point
A November announcement from Asiacell, Iraq’s leading mobile operator, gave Cisco another concrete AI case study:
- Asiacell is deploying Cisco’s AI‑powered Provider Connectivity Assurance (PCA) platform to add predictive, self‑healing capabilities across its nationwide network, serving about 19.7 million customers. [18]
A new analysis from Simply Wall St, published December 10, argues that this deal reinforces Cisco’s traction in AI‑driven automation, even though the real near‑term growth driver remains the much larger hyperscaler AI infrastructure orders and raised FY 2026 guidance. [19]
In other words: the fundamental story that pushed Cisco toward $80 over the past month is still very much alive as of December 10.
3. What the Street Is Saying on December 10
Headlines: “Dot‑com curse broken”
The December 10 headlines are mostly about symbolism:
- Barron’s highlighted that Cisco has logged its highest close since the dot‑com bubble burst, with the stock up 36% in 2025 and trading at about 19x forward earnings, far below the nearly 97x forward P/E it enjoyed in 1999. [20]
- Bloomberg framed the move as Cisco “finally top[ping] its dot‑com record after more than 25 years,” underscoring how long it took for shareholders to break even from that era. [21]
- Morningstar’s Data Talk simply recorded the stats: $80.25, +0.74 (0.93%), new all‑time closing high. [22]
Business Insider recently added a more sobering angle: from the March 2000 peak to now, Cisco’s total price return has been roughly flat while the S&P 500 is up about 350%, a pointed reminder that buying into tech manias at the wrong time can mean decades of dead money. [23]
So December 10 is both a celebration and a warning label.
Analysts: still “Moderate Buy,” targets clustered in the mid‑80s to low‑90s
On the fundamental side, Cisco’s latest uplift hasn’t scared off most Wall Street analysts yet:
- MarketBeat counts 17 Buy ratings and 9 Holds, for a “Moderate Buy” consensus and an average price target of about $84.14. Several banks – including Rosenblatt and JPMorgan – have targets in the $90–$100 range after the November earnings beat. [24]
- On TipRanks, Cisco sits at a Smart Score of 7/10 (neutral‑to‑bullish) with an average analyst target around $88.6, implying roughly 12% upside from the $80 area. [25]
Fundamental data aggregators show the valuation picture:
- Trailing P/E: around 30–31x
- Forward P/E: roughly 19x
- Dividend:$1.64 per share annually, yield ~2.0–2.1%, with about 15 consecutive years of dividend growth and a payout ratio ~63%. [26]
This is not a “cheap” stock in absolute terms, but relative to other AI beneficiaries, it looks more like a growth‑and‑income hybrid than a pure momentum rocket.
Technical and quant views: trend bullish, warnings creeping in
On December 10, most technical dashboards are flashing green:
- Investing.com’s technical summary rates CSCO a “Strong Buy” on the daily timeframe, with 9 buy signals and 0 sells, a 14‑day RSI in the mid‑60s and a positive MACD – classic strong‑trend behavior, but getting closer to overbought territory. [27]
- Economies.com notes that Cisco’s price has broken up toward the key $80 resistance with “dynamic support” from trading above its 50‑day moving average and an ascending short‑term trendline. [28]
- TipRanks and other technical feeds show CSCO’s 50‑day and 100‑day moving averages clustered in the low‑70s, comfortably below the current price – another sign the uptrend is well established. [29]
On the quant side, CoinCodex projects that in December 2025 Cisco is likely to trade in a band between about $78.4 and $86.0, with an average price around $82.6, implying modest high‑single‑digit upside from current levels. Longer‑term, their model actually sees potential downside over the next year, to roughly the mid‑$60s. [30]
And then there’s the outright bearish camp.
DailyForex call: a tactical short into strength
A December 10 technical note from DailyForex argues that Cisco’s rally has overshot its fundamentals:
- The author points to declining operating and profit margins, rising long‑term debt, and single‑digit EPS growth expectations, concluding that these do not justify the recent surge. [31]
- They flag a P/E of about 30.7, calling the stock expensive versus its industry, and note that consensus earnings estimates have ticked down over the last month. [32]
- Their trading plan:
- Short entry: $78.51–$80.06
- Take profit: $62.30–$65.75
- Stop‑loss: $84.81–$87.35
- Implied risk/reward ~2.6x to the downside. [33]
That’s an aggressive view, but it’s relevant context: not everyone believes the AI‑fuelled breakout is sustainable from here.
4. Macro Context: Fed Cut Gives Big Tech a Tailwind
December 10 wasn’t just a Cisco story; it was also Fed day.
The Federal Reserve cut the federal funds target rate by 25 basis points to 3.50–3.75%, its third cut of 2025, while signaling a higher bar for any additional easing – the classic “hawkish cut.” [34]
Markets loved it:
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 1.1–1.3%, closing above 48,000 for the first time.
- The S&P 500 climbed roughly 0.7–0.8%, finishing just shy of a record high.
- The Nasdaq Composite gained around 0.5–0.7%. [35]
Lower policy rates and a still‑cautious Fed are generally supportive for long‑duration assets – including big tech names with high P/Es and large AI capex cycles. That macro tailwind almost certainly helped Cisco hold its breakout and attract incremental buyers into the close and after hours.
One wrinkle: Oracle reported earnings the same evening and dropped about 10% after hours on softer‑than‑expected cloud and earnings guidance, despite massive AI‑driven capex plans. [36]
That contrast – Cisco hitting records while another AI‑linked infrastructure player stumbles – is exactly the kind of cross‑current traders will parse before the December 11 open.
5. Key Levels and Scenarios Before the December 11 Open
Heading into the next session, the setup for CSCO looks something like this:
1. $80 as new “line in the sand”
The $80 zone has been the key resistance for weeks; now it’s the level to watch as potential new support:
- Intraday highs in recent sessions clustered just below $80.06 before the breakout. [37]
- DailyForex’s short thesis explicitly uses $80.06 as the upper band of a resistance zone. [38]
Bullish scenario for December 11:
If pre‑market trading and the opening auction keep Cisco comfortably above $80, the market is effectively validating the breakout. That opens the door to tests of the mid‑$80s in coming days if AI‑infrastructure sentiment stays hot and the broader market holds up.
Cautionary scenario:
A quick fade back below $79–$79.5 would suggest that some traders are using the dot‑com‑headline moment to lock in profits, which could pull the stock back toward prior closes around $78–$79 in the short term. [39]
2. Nearby support: high‑$70s
Short‑term supports that traders are watching include: [40]
- $78.5–$79: recent consolidation zone and prior breakout area
- Low‑to‑mid‑$70s: where the 50‑day and 100‑day moving averages sit, still well below spot
A pullback into this region would not automatically break the uptrend, but it would line up neatly with the idea that post‑Fed volatility plus “AI bubble” worries could spark a shakeout.
3. Upside reference points: mid‑80s and beyond
Models and analysts are implicitly drawing an upside corridor for the next leg:
- CoinCodex: December 2025 band $78.4–$86.0, average $82.6. [41]
- MarketBeat average target:$84.14. [42]
- More bullish sell‑side calls: high targets in the $90–$100 area from firms like Rosenblatt and JPMorgan after the Q1 earnings beat. [43]
For short‑term traders, the low‑to‑mid‑80s are the next obvious magnet if the breakout holds.
6. Risks That Could Derail Cisco’s Rally
The tape looks strong, but several non‑trivial risks are hanging over the story.
AI capex is cyclical, not magic
Cisco’s current guidance implicitly assumes that hyperscaler AI spending stays very robust through FY 2026, delivering about $3 billion in AI infrastructure revenue from these customers alone. [44]
If cloud providers slow or pause AI data‑center build‑outs, Cisco’s AI order book – the main engine of the current re‑rating – could cool quickly.
Margins and growth vs valuation
DailyForex’s bearish argument leans on a few uncomfortable truths: [45]
- Operating and profit margins have improved only modestly on a multi‑year basis, even as AI orders surge.
- EPS growth expectations remain in the single digits for the next few years, while the stock trades at ~30x trailing earnings and ~19x forward.
- A 5‑year PEG ratio near 6 suggests the current price already bakes in a lot of future growth.
That doesn’t make the stock a bubble by default, but it shrinks the margin of safety if anything goes wrong with the AI pipeline or Splunk integration.
Splunk, security and execution risk
Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk is central to its “security + observability + AI ops” pitch, but the transition is bumpy:
- Some analysts have flagged sluggish security revenue as Cisco shifts more business to cloud subscriptions and folds Splunk into its broader portfolio. [46]
- Integration missteps could weigh on both growth and margins, which would be particularly awkward at a time when investors are paying up for the AI growth story.
Macro and “AI bubble” concerns
The Fed may have cut rates again, but the December 10 move was explicitly “hawkish” and internally divided, signaling that policymakers are not eager to keep cutting blindly. [47]
If future data or Fed commentary pushes yields higher again, richly valued AI‑linked names like Cisco could see a valuation compression, even if earnings remain solid.
And, as Business Insider pointed out, the fact that it took Cisco an entire quarter‑century to get back to its dot‑com high is a live cautionary tale for anyone assuming “this AI boom is different”. [48]
7. What to Watch Before the December 11, 2025 Open
Heading into the next session, here are the main things traders and investors are likely to focus on:
- Pre‑market price action around $80
- Sustained trading above $80 would signal that the breakout is being embraced, not faded.
- A slide back into the high‑$70s would fit with profit‑taking and the bearish short‑term setup some technicians are calling out. [49]
- Read‑through from AI infrastructure peers
- Oracle’s post‑earnings slump has already reminded the market that AI capex doesn’t guarantee straight‑line stock gains. [50]
- Moves in Broadcom, Arista, Nvidia and other AI‑plumbing stocks will shape how “crowded” the trade around networking and data‑center hardware looks.
- Any follow‑up commentary from the Barclays Tech Conference
- Cisco’s CFO, Mark Patterson, spent part of December 10 at Barclays’ Global Technology Conference, fielding questions on the strength and breadth of AI‑related orders. [51]
- Any notable quotes that leak into the press overnight – especially about AI demand timing or Splunk synergies – could nudge sentiment.
- Macro data and Fed‑watching
- Markets will keep digesting the Fed’s dot‑plot, inflation projections and the split vote behind the December rate cut. [52]
- Any sharp move in Treasury yields or rate‑cut expectations could feed directly into valuation multiples for mega‑cap tech, Cisco included.
Bottom Line
As of after hours on December 10, 2025, Cisco sits in a textbook breakout position:
- Price: at a fresh all‑time high above $80, with after‑hours buyers nudging it higher still. [53]
- Fundamentals: supported by real AI infrastructure orders, raised FY 2026 guidance and a growing observability/security platform. [54]
- Sentiment: broadly bullish on Wall Street and in quant models, but with visible pockets of skepticism warning about margins, debt, and AI‑cycle risk. [55]
References
1. www.morningstar.com, 2. public.com, 3. www.barrons.com, 4. www.morningstar.com, 5. www.macrotrends.net, 6. www.morningstar.com, 7. www.barrons.com, 8. public.com, 9. finance.yahoo.com, 10. investor.cisco.com, 11. investor.cisco.com, 12. investor.cisco.com, 13. newsroom.cisco.com, 14. futurumgroup.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. futurumgroup.com, 17. www.cisco.com, 18. www.prnewswire.com, 19. simplywall.st, 20. www.barrons.com, 21. www.bloomberg.com, 22. www.morningstar.com, 23. www.businessinsider.com, 24. www.marketbeat.com, 25. www.tipranks.com, 26. stockanalysis.com, 27. www.investing.com, 28. www.economies.com, 29. www.tipranks.com, 30. coincodex.com, 31. www.dailyforex.com, 32. www.dailyforex.com, 33. www.dailyforex.com, 34. www.reuters.com, 35. www.marketwatch.com, 36. www.reuters.com, 37. www.marketbeat.com, 38. www.dailyforex.com, 39. investor.cisco.com, 40. www.economies.com, 41. coincodex.com, 42. www.marketbeat.com, 43. www.marketbeat.com, 44. futurumgroup.com, 45. www.dailyforex.com, 46. www.investors.com, 47. www.reuters.com, 48. www.businessinsider.com, 49. public.com, 50. www.reuters.com, 51. seekingalpha.com, 52. www.federalreserve.gov, 53. www.morningstar.com, 54. investor.cisco.com, 55. www.marketbeat.com
