Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is having a very 2025 moment: a legacy networking giant that spent years looking “mature” is suddenly back in the market’s spotlight—helped by the AI infrastructure buildout, a return to post–dot-com-era highs, and an investor-friendly capital return story. At the same time, Cisco is dealing with the kind of headline risk that follows security vendors everywhere: a critical, actively exploited vulnerability affecting certain Cisco email security products. [1]
As of the latest trade timestamp available on Saturday, December 20, 2025 (UTC), CSCO stock is around $78.42, up about 1.9% versus the prior close.
Below is what matters for Cisco stock right now—the biggest recent catalysts, the latest company guidance, the key risks investors are weighing, and where major analysts see the shares heading into 2026.
Why Cisco stock is back in the headlines: the “25-year comeback” meets the AI era
One of the most symbolically loud Cisco headlines this month: the stock finally moved above its dot-com peak after more than 25 years, with shares reaching about $80.25—edging past the prior record near $80.06 from March 2000. [2]
That’s not just nostalgia. It’s also a shorthand for what’s changed in the narrative:
- Cisco is benefiting from AI-driven data center networking demand (think switching, routing, optical and high-performance Ethernet upgrades).
- The company has leaned harder into software and recurring revenue, especially post-Splunk.
- Investors have been rewarding companies that sell the “pipes and plumbing” of AI—not only the chips. [3]
The fundamental driver: Cisco raised its FY2026 outlook as AI infrastructure orders accelerated
The most market-moving fundamental update in this news cycle remains Cisco’s fiscal Q1 2026 report and outlook raise.
Cisco reported Q1 FY2026 revenue of $14.9 billion (up 8% year over year) and non‑GAAP EPS of $1.00, and highlighted that product orders rose 13% year over year. [4]
More importantly for the stock’s re-rating, Cisco lifted guidance:
- Q2 FY2026 guidance: revenue $15.0B–$15.2B, non‑GAAP EPS $1.01–$1.03 [5]
- FY2026 guidance: revenue $60.2B–$61.0B, non‑GAAP EPS $4.08–$4.14 [6]
And the AI-specific data point Wall Street keeps circling in red marker:
- Cisco said AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers totaled $1.3 billion in Q1—an acceleration that reinforced the “Cisco is an AI networking beneficiary” thesis. [7]
- Reuters also reported Cisco’s CEO referenced expectations of about $3 billion in AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers in fiscal 2026, after more than $2 billion in AI orders in fiscal 2025, plus a pipeline in excess of $2 billion for high-performance networking products. [8]
The market takeaway: Cisco isn’t trying to be an AI model company. It’s aiming to be a high-confidence supplier to the companies spending tens of billions building AI capacity.
Product catalyst investors are watching: “AI at the edge,” not only in mega data centers
Cisco’s AI pitch isn’t limited to hyperscale data centers. Another recent news item that matters for the long-term story: Cisco introduced a platform designed to run AI workloads closer to where data is generated—retail, healthcare, factory floors—marketed as Cisco Unified Edge.
Reuters reported Cisco’s message clearly: as AI workloads proliferate, more processing shifts to the edge of networks to reduce latency, cost, and data-movement friction, and Cisco wants to sell the infrastructure that enables that shift. [9]
For CSCO investors, this “edge AI” angle is important because it broadens the total addressable market beyond a handful of hyperscalers—potentially into thousands of enterprises and public sector environments.
The biggest near-term risk headline: a critical, actively exploited AsyncOS vulnerability
While Cisco sells security—and now owns Splunk—the company still faces security events that can create short-term uncertainty (even if they don’t change long-term fundamentals).
Canadian government cyber authorities reported that on December 17, 2025, Cisco published a security advisory addressing a critical vulnerability affecting:
- Cisco Secure Email Gateway (AsyncOS) with Spam Quarantine enabled and exposed to the internet
- Cisco Secure Email and Web Manager (AsyncOS) with Spam Quarantine enabled and exposed to the internet [10]
The vulnerability is tracked as CVE‑2025‑20393 and is listed with a CVSS v3.1 vector consistent with critical severity in NIST’s National Vulnerability Database (NVD). [11]
Cybersecurity reporting over the last couple of days has emphasized three investor-relevant points:
- Active exploitation is being reported (this isn’t a theoretical bug). [12]
- Exposure appears limited to specific configurations (Spam Quarantine enabled and internet-exposed), which may constrain the blast radius. [13]
- The story can still matter financially, even if only a subset is affected, because enterprise security incidents influence renewal cycles, brand trust, and near-term purchasing friction.
Two things can be true at once in the weird ecology of enterprise tech:
- Security headlines can be a reputational risk,
- And heightened threat awareness can also increase demand for security modernization—an area where Cisco is actively investing.
Analyst forecasts and Wall Street targets: the street leans “constructive,” but valuation sensitivity is rising
Cisco’s rally and “new highs” narrative has pulled more analyst attention back to CSCO—especially through the AI infrastructure lens.
Morgan Stanley: target raised to $91
In a year-ahead note, Morgan Stanley raised its price target to $91 from $82 and maintained an Overweight rating, tying the call to the broadening of the AI infrastructure trade beyond semiconductors and into network infrastructure. [14]
UBS: upgrade to Buy with an $88 target (AI + campus refresh + security)
UBS upgraded Cisco to Buy from Neutral and lifted its price target to $88 (from $74), arguing Cisco is entering a multi-year growth cycle supported by AI infrastructure, a large-scale campus refresh, and security momentum. [15]
The broader “consensus” picture
Across widely followed market tracking pages, Cisco’s average price targets cluster in the mid‑$80s, with highs reaching into the $100 zone depending on the firm, and lows typically in the high‑$60s area. [16]
What’s the tension inside those targets?
- Bulls see Cisco as an “AI picks-and-shovels” infrastructure name with improving growth quality.
- Skeptics worry that once a mature mega-cap re-rates, it becomes more sensitive to any growth wobble, enterprise budget pauses, or competitive pricing.
Governance and “stock tape” updates: insider sale and stock plan changes
Two recent items are worth noting mainly because they often show up in investor news feeds and can briefly move sentiment:
Insider activity: Form 144 filing to sell shares
A Reuters-distributed item reported that Director Michael Capellas filed a Form 144 proposing to sell 27,000 shares, with an approximate sale date of December 18, 2025. [17]
(Insider sales happen for many reasons—taxes, diversification, liquidity—so markets typically look for patterns and size relative to total holdings rather than reacting to a single filing.)
Stockholder vote: amended stock incentive plan
Cisco disclosed that at its December 16, 2025 annual meeting, stockholders approved an amended and restated 2005 Stock Incentive Plan, effective that day. [18]
For investors, stock-plan expansions matter because they relate to dilution over time—though the real-world impact depends on share count, buybacks, and actual equity grant practices.
Dividend and buybacks: Cisco is still paying you to be patient
Cisco continues to pair its “AI growth” narrative with a very classic mega-cap shareholder return program.
In its Q1 FY2026 release, Cisco said it declared a quarterly dividend of $0.41 per share, payable January 21, 2026 to stockholders of record as of January 2, 2026. [19]
Cisco also reported it returned $3.6 billion to stockholders in Q1 via dividends and repurchases, including buying back about 29 million shares at an average price of $68.28, and said it had $12.2 billion remaining authorized for repurchases (with no termination date). [20]
That combination—dividend + buybacks—tends to matter more in “grown-up market” regimes, where investors demand not only stories, but also cash discipline.
What matters next for CSCO stock into early 2026
Here are the practical “watch items” that are most likely to drive the next leg of Cisco’s stock narrative:
AI order conversion and guidance execution.
The market liked the Q1 acceleration; it will want to see that momentum translate into sustained revenue and margins, not just one quarter of strong orders. [21]
Campus refresh cycle durability.
Cisco has framed campus networking as a multi-year opportunity, which—if it plays out—helps Cisco avoid being boxed into only the hyperscaler capex cycle. [22]
Security headline resolution (CVE‑2025‑20393).
Investors will watch for remediation progress and whether this becomes a contained issue or a longer-running enterprise concern. [23]
Analyst target revisions vs. valuation reality.
When a stock revisits record territory, it can keep rising—but it also becomes less forgiving. Morgan Stanley’s move to $91 is a good example of the Street leaning in, while still warning that selectivity will matter as multiples rise. [24]
Bottom line for Cisco stock on Dec. 20, 2025
Cisco stock is trading in a rare intersection of narratives:
- A legacy tech leader that finally broke above its dot-com-era ceiling, [25]
- A real AI infrastructure beneficiary with accelerating hyperscaler orders and raised FY2026 guidance, [26]
- A shareholder-return machine (dividend + buybacks), [27]
- And a company that—because it lives in security—must manage the occasional high-severity vulnerability headline without letting it derail customer trust. [28]
For Google News and Discover readers, the simplest framing is this: CSCO is no longer just a “steady networking dividend stock.” It’s increasingly being treated as a strategic infrastructure play on where AI computing goes next—data centers, edge sites, and secure enterprise networks—while carrying the operational reality that the security world is always one bug away from a bad week.
References
1. www.ft.com, 2. www.ft.com, 3. www.reuters.com, 4. investor.cisco.com, 5. investor.cisco.com, 6. investor.cisco.com, 7. investor.cisco.com, 8. www.reuters.com, 9. www.reuters.com, 10. www.cyber.gc.ca, 11. nvd.nist.gov, 12. www.itpro.com, 13. www.techradar.com, 14. www.tipranks.com, 15. www.tipranks.com, 16. www.investing.com, 17. www.tradingview.com, 18. www.sec.gov, 19. investor.cisco.com, 20. investor.cisco.com, 21. investor.cisco.com, 22. investor.cisco.com, 23. www.cyber.gc.ca, 24. www.tipranks.com, 25. www.ft.com, 26. investor.cisco.com, 27. investor.cisco.com, 28. www.cyber.gc.ca
