New York, June 13, 2026, 12:02 (EDT).
- Cisco ended Friday at $121.10, off 0.6%. The S&P 500 and Dow finished higher.
- Morgan Stanley upped its price target on Cisco to $130 from $120 while sticking with an Overweight call.
- All eyes now turn to Cisco’s fiscal Q4 report, where investors will gauge how AI infrastructure demand stacks up against concerns about margin and valuation.
Cisco Systems (CSCO) finished Friday at $121.10, pulling back after a week that saw the stock trade between $120.74 and $122.90. The stock lost 0.6% on Friday, trailing both the S&P 500, which climbed 0.50%, and the Dow, up 0.70%. Shares had jumped 2.55% on Thursday. The move suggests investors are still interested in Cisco’s AI-networking story, but are starting to pick their spots as the stock cools from its latest rally.
Morgan Stanley raised its Cisco target to $130 from $120 and kept an Overweight rating, meaning it sees the stock beating a benchmark or peers. With Cisco closing Friday where it did, that target gives about 7% upside. The boost follows a strong climb in Cisco shares earlier this year. Morgan Stanley said the move is about demand for front-end networking gear, the tech linking servers and data centers for AI and cloud.
Cisco’s numbers look better than a year ago. The company reported Q3 fiscal 2026 revenue of $15.8 billion, a 12% gain from last year, and non-GAAP EPS of $1.06. Non-GAAP EPS is adjusted earnings per share that leaves out some accounting items. CEO Chuck Robbins called Cisco “well-positioned as the critical infrastructure for the AI era.” The company projects Q4 revenue between $16.7 billion and $16.9 billion and guides non-GAAP EPS to $1.16 to $1.18. Cisco Investor Relations
Cisco may be getting a new look from investors, not just as a mature networking hardware play. In its Q3 prepared remarks, Cisco said AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers came to $1.9 billion for the quarter and $5.3 billion so far this year, already topping its earlier fiscal year targets. Cisco now sees about $9 billion in fiscal 2026 AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers. The company reported campus networking orders up more than 25%, and data-center switching orders ahead more than 40% year on year.
Cisco is pushing into software and security. The company’s new Cloud Control platform aims to let businesses handle IT and security with AI agents. Reuters said the platform is out in North America, and a marketplace for third-party tools is coming in the back half of 2026. “You can no longer do things at human scale,” DJ Sampath, Cisco’s senior vice president and general manager of AI software and platform, told Reuters. Operations have to go to “machine scale,” he said. For the stock, that matters if Cisco turns new product demand into more steady software and security revenue, which could mean a higher valuation. Reuters
Bears focus on valuation and execution. Cisco’s trailing P/E is around 40.2, so investors pay about 40 times the last year’s earnings. On Friday’s price and the midpoint of fiscal 2026 non-GAAP EPS guidance, the multiple is close to 28 times adjusted earnings. That’s still high, considering Q3 services revenue dropped 1%, security revenue was flat, and non-GAAP gross margin slid to 66.0% from 68.6% last year. Cisco said tariff costs are baked into its margin and EPS guidance, bringing more risk from trade policy and costs.
Cisco’s next big event is fiscal Q4 earnings, scheduled by Yahoo Finance for August 12, 2026. Investors are set to check if revenue lands in the $16.7 billion to $16.9 billion range, with a close eye on AI order strength and whether gross margin stays in the 65.5% to 66.5% non-GAAP band. Right now, the numbers show Cisco as fairly valued rather than clearly cheap: ongoing AI demand and analyst coverage support the case, but a full valuation, margin risk, and the challenge of turning AI orders into steady revenue add risk for anyone trying to buy into the move.
