Cisco Stock (CSCO) Today, November 21, 2025: Price, AI Earnings Boost, Big Buyers and the 2026 Outlook

Cisco stock price today (21 November 2025)

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is trading modestly higher on Friday, November 21, 2025, as investors weigh last week’s AI-fueled earnings beat against fresh hedge-fund and central-bank positioning.

Live price (intraday): about $76.15 per share, up roughly 0.9% on the day, based on the latest trade around 15:57 UTC.
Day range: approximately $75.45 – $76.47, after opening near $75.63.
Market cap & valuation: market value around $297 billion, with a trailing P/E near 28.8, a PEG ratio ~3.0 and beta ~0.95, according to recent institutional reports. ^[1]
52‑week range: roughly $52.11 – $80.06, putting today’s price closer to the top end of its yearly band. ^[2]

At current levels, Cisco trades at about 18.5× the midpoint of its FY 2026 non‑GAAP EPS guidance ($4.08–$4.14). ^[3]

Today’s Cisco stock news (21 November 2025)

Several Cisco-specific headlines hit the tape on November 21, 2025, most of them tied to institutional holdings and sentiment around the AI and dividend story.

1. Swiss National Bank adds 809,800 CSCO shares

A fresh 13F-based note from MarketBeat shows the Swiss National Bank (SNB) increased its Cisco stake by 7.2% in Q2: ^[4]

SNB now owns 12,042,600 CSCO shares, after buying an additional 809,800.
Cisco accounts for about 0.5% of SNB’s portfolio and is its 27th‑largest holding.
SNB’s stake represents roughly 0.30% of Cisco’s shares outstanding, valued at about $835.5 million at the time of filing.

Large, conservative institutions like SNB adding to positions tend to be read as a vote of confidence in Cisco’s long-term role in networking and AI infrastructure.

2. Legal & General trims, but remains a top holder

In contrast, Legal & General Group slightly reduced its position, trimming holdings by 1.2% in Q2: ^[5]

The firm sold 433,597 shares, ending the quarter with 35,139,238 shares.
Cisco still makes up about 0.6% of its portfolio and remains the group’s 21st‑largest holding.
Legal & General owns roughly 0.89% of Cisco’s equity, worth about $2.44 billion at the time of the filing.

Despite the small reduction, Cisco clearly remains a core long-term position for one of Europe’s biggest asset managers.

3. Franklin Resources boosts ownership by over 40%

Another MarketBeat alert notes that Franklin Resources Inc. (Franklin Templeton) increased its Cisco stake by 46.2% in Q2. The firm now owns over 40.8 million shares, representing a little more than 1% of Cisco’s shares and roughly 0.8% of Franklin’s portfolio. ^[6]

Taken together with SNB’s move, this points to net institutional accumulation, even though some large investors are fine‑tuning positions at the margin.

4. Journey Strategic Wealth adds to Cisco

A smaller—but telling—filing: Journey Strategic Wealth LLC increased its holdings in Cisco by 30.7% in Q2. ^[7]

The firm bought 8,887 additional shares, taking its total to 37,838 shares valued at about $2.63 million.
MarketBeat notes that, across the shareholder base, about 73% of Cisco’s stock is owned by institutions and hedge funds. ^[8]

High institutional ownership can amplify moves in both directions, but also signals that Cisco is firmly embedded in long‑only and income‑oriented portfolios.

5. Heavy options activity around the November 21 expiry

A Nasdaq options recap from Thursday highlighted unusually high options volume in CSCO: ^[9]

Around 106,724 Cisco options contracts traded in one day, equivalent to about 10.7 million shares, or 43% of CSCO’s average daily share volume.
The standout trade was the $62.50 strike put expiring November 21, 2025, with roughly 20,005 contracts changing hands—about 2 million shares of notional exposure.

That kind of activity suggests significant hedging or speculative positioning around today’s expiry, with some investors insuring against a drop below the low‑$60s over the very short term, even as the stock trades in the mid‑$70s.

6. A “stock to sell” call despite strong momentum

A StockStory piece syndicated via Times-Online framed Cisco as the “one stock to sell” among three names trading near 52‑week highs: ^[10]

It notes a +7.1% one‑month return for CSCO, but highlights:
1. Flat sales over the last two years, suggesting limited expansion this cycle.
2. A 5.8‑percentage‑point decline in free cash flow margin over the past five years.
3. Diminishing returns on capital, implying early high‑margin profit pools are maturing.
The article points out Cisco is trading near $75.74, around 18× forward P/E, and argues investors should “think twice” about adding CSCO at these levels. ^[11]

This is a notable counterweight to the AI‑and‑dividend bull case that has been building around the stock.

7. Ongoing debate: Cisco vs Palo Alto in security

Zacks published a Palo Alto Networks (PANW) vs Cisco (CSCO) comparison, in which it leans toward Palo Alto as the preferable cybersecurity pure play. ^[12]

Zacks underscores Palo Alto’s rapid growth in SASE and next‑generation security.
It contrasts that with Cisco’s slower‑moving, transitional security portfolio, where legacy products are still being phased out in favor of newer, cloud‑delivered offerings.

For Cisco, this reinforces a familiar narrative: strong in networking and AI infrastructure, but still “proving it” in modern security.

Big picture: AI earnings beat is still driving the story

Although today’s headlines center on holdings and sentiment, the real driver of Cisco’s share price in November is last week’s strong Q1 FY 2026 earnings and upgraded guidance.

Q1 FY 2026 by the numbers

For the quarter ended October 26, 2025, Cisco reported: ^[13]

Revenue:$14.9 billion, +8% year over year, slightly above consensus.
Product revenue:$11.1 billion, +10% YoY.
Services revenue:$3.8 billion, +2% YoY.
Segment highlights:
- Networking:$7.8 billion, +15% YoY
- Security:$2.0 billion, −2% YoY (in portfolio transition)
- Collaboration:$1.1 billion, −3% YoY
- Observability:$274 million, +6% YoY
Non‑GAAP EPS:$1.00, +10% YoY, with non‑GAAP operating margin around 34%.

Both Futurum Research and UC Today emphasize that total product orders grew about 13%, led by a 45% surge from service‑provider and cloud customers, signaling a resurgence in demand after a digestion period. ^[14]

AI infrastructure is the new growth engine

Cisco’s AI networking story is central to the bullish thesis:

The company booked about $1.3 billion in AI infrastructure orders in Q1, largely from major hyperscalers. ^[15]
Management expects roughly $3 billion in AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers in FY 2026. ^[16]
Orders are split between Silicon One‑based systems and pluggable optics, with Cisco on pace to ship its one‑millionth Silicon One chip in Q2 FY 2026. ^[17]
The new Cisco 8223 router, based on the Silicon One P200 chipset, supports 51.2 Tbps throughput, targeting AI data center interconnect traffic. ^[18]
A forthcoming N9100 switch integrating NVIDIA Spectrum‑X is slated for the second half of FY 2026, further tying Cisco into AI clusters. ^[19]

Cisco executives have stressed that agentic AI queries can generate up to 25× more network traffic than traditional chatbots, supporting the case for a multi‑year campus and data center refresh cycle that leans heavily on higher‑bandwidth, lower‑latency Ethernet networking. ^[20]

Upgraded guidance for FY 2026

Cisco’s official guidance now calls for: ^[21]

Q2 FY 2026 revenue:$15.0–$15.2 billion
Q2 non‑GAAP EPS:$1.01–$1.03
Full‑year FY 2026 revenue:$60.2–$61.0 billion
Full‑year non‑GAAP EPS:$4.08–$4.14

These revisions, together with the AI narrative, helped push Cisco shares about 6% higher on the day of the earnings release, according to Reuters and other market reports. ^[22]

Cisco IQ and the broader AI platform story

Beyond hardware, Cisco is also leaning into AI‑driven services and automation.

Cisco IQ: AI-powered customer and partner experience

Earlier this month, Cisco formally launched Cisco IQ, described as a unified, AI-powered interface that connects the full customer journey across professional services and support: ^[23]

Cisco IQ brings together real-time insights, on‑demand assessments, troubleshooting, automation and agentic AI into a single experience.
It’s designed to adapt to each customer’s operational environment, providing contextual recommendations and actions.
Deployment options include SaaS, on‑prem “tethered,” and on‑prem air‑gapped, with secure API integration into existing workflows.
General availability is targeted for H2 FY 2026, and it’s positioned as the common foundation for Cisco’s Support and Professional Services portfolio.

Cisco frames this as part of an “Agentic AI” vision, where AI agents and human teams work together to prevent outages, speed incident resolution and optimize infrastructure, rather than replacing human expertise outright. ^[24]

For investors, Cisco IQ reinforces the idea that software, services and recurring revenue are increasingly central to the company’s AI strategy, not just hardware.

Cisco as an AI-powered dividend stock

On the income side, Cisco still behaves like a classic dividend blue chip—and that’s drawing attention from dividend investors looking for AI exposure.

Dividend profile

Recent filings and commentary highlight: ^[25]

Quarterly dividend:$0.41 per share, or $1.64 annually.
Dividend yield: roughly 2.1–2.2% at today’s price.
Streak: Cisco has increased its dividend for about 15 consecutive years.
Payout ratio: around 60–63% of earnings, leaving room for continued increases if earnings grow in line with guidance.

A 24/7 Wall St analysis of “AI‑driven dividend stocks” places Cisco alongside Broadcom and Seagate, noting that the company’s push toward recurring revenue and subscription models has strengthened cash flow and made it a rare tech name that combines AI exposure with a dependable dividend stream. ^[26]

Recurring revenue and cash generation

Earnings commentary shows that: ^[27]

Annualized recurring revenue (ARR) stands at about $31.4 billion, up 5% YoY.
Product ARR grew 7%, while total remaining performance obligations (RPO) rose 7% to $42.9 billion.
Subscription revenue accounts for about 54% of total sales, with software revenue growing despite macro headwinds.

This recurring mix supports the “sleep‑at‑night” aspect of the Cisco thesis for investors who care about both AI growth and stable income.

But there are real risks: growth, security, and competition

Despite the AI and dividend positives, today’s commentary and recent research pieces underline that Cisco is not a slam‑dunk story.

1. Growth has been uneven

StockStory’s “stock to sell” argument points out that overall sales have been roughly flat over the last two years, even as the share price has marched higher. ^[28]

Reuters’ financial summaries show that Cisco generated about $56.7 billion in revenue and $10.2 billion in net income in 2025, not dramatically different from recent years, reinforcing the idea of a mature—but profitable—franchise rather than a hyper‑growth AI rocket ship. ^[29]

2. Free cash flow margin and returns on capital

The same StockStory piece flags that: ^[30]

Cisco’s free cash flow margin has compressed by around 5.8 percentage points over five years, suggesting heavier investment or pricing pressure.
Returns on capital are trending lower, which can be a warning sign that new investments aren’t as lucrative as past ones.

For long‑term investors, these are important metrics to track, especially when the stock trades at mid‑ to high‑teens forward earnings multiples.

3. Security and data center competition

Cisco also faces stiff competition on two fronts:

Security: Zacks emphasizes that Palo Alto Networks’ rapid SASE and next‑gen security expansion makes it the more compelling pure‑play in cyber, while Cisco’s security revenue actually declined 2% in Q1 as it transitions to a new platform and integrates Splunk. ^[31]
Data center / AI networking: A Seeking Alpha note on Arista Networks describes Arista as a key leader in AI data center switching, even while acknowledging Cisco’s revitalized push. The implication: Cisco’s AI networking win is not guaranteed; it is competing in a crowded, technically demanding space. ^[32]

Overall, the risk is that Cisco executes well but still grows only modestly, if competitors capture a disproportionate share of AI infrastructure and security spending.

How analysts currently view Cisco stock

Wall Street’s stance is constructive but not euphoric.

MarketBeat aggregates 17 Buy ratings and 9 Hold ratings, for a consensus “Moderate Buy”. ^[33]
The average price target is around $84.14, implying mid‑single‑digit to low‑double‑digit upside from current levels. ^[34]
Recent target hikes include moves up into the $80–$100 range from firms like BNP Paribas Exane, Barclays and Melius Research, reflecting improved confidence after the AI‑driven earnings beat. ^[35]

At the same time, some analyst and newsletter commentary explicitly says that other AI names may offer better risk‑reward, even while rating Cisco itself as a decent, diversified holding. ^[36]

Cisco stock today: key numbers at a glance

Bringing it together for Friday, November 21, 2025:

Price (intraday): ~$76.15
Move today: roughly +0.9%
52‑week range: ~$52.11 – $80.06 ^[37]
Trailing P/E: ~28.8; forward P/E: ~18.5× FY 2026 EPS guidance midpoint ^[38]
Dividend yield: about 2.1% on a $1.64 annual payout, with a ~15‑year raise streak ^[39]
Institutional ownership: roughly 73% of shares outstanding ^[40]
AI exposure: ~$1.3B AI infra orders in Q1; ~$3B expected AI revenue from hyperscalers in FY 2026; strong Ethernet, optics and silicon roadmap. ^[41]

What to watch next for CSCO investors

Whether you’re trading Cisco stock today or tracking it for the long term, the next few quarters will likely hinge on:

AI revenue realization
Can Cisco actually recognize the $3B+ AI pipeline it has guided for FY 2026, and does that pipeline continue to grow beyond this fiscal year? ^[42]
Security and Splunk integration
The market will watch whether the Security segment returns to growth as legacy platforms roll off and Splunk’s cloud‑based ARR ramps inside Cisco’s broader Secure Cloud and Observability stack. ^[43]
Adoption of Cisco IQ and AI operations tools
As Cisco IQ moves from early field trials to broader availability in H2 FY 2026, adoption data could shape perceptions of Cisco’s high‑margin software and services upside. ^[44]
Macro and AI‑trade sentiment
Broader market volatility and ongoing debate over an “AI bubble” continue to whipsaw tech. Markets have swung sharply this week as investors reassess rate‑cut odds and AI valuations. ^[45]

Final thoughts

On November 21, 2025, Cisco stock sits at the crossroads of three narratives:

A credible AI infrastructure and networking growth story, backed by real orders and upgraded guidance.
A steady dividend-and-recurring-revenue profile that appeals to income and defensive investors.
Legitimate concerns about long‑term growth, free cash flow trends, and tough competition in security and data center networking.

For traders, the combination of elevated options activity and proximity to 52‑week highs keeps short‑term risk elevated. For long‑term investors, the question is whether Cisco can convert its AI momentum and platform moves like Cisco IQ into sustained revenue and cash‑flow growth that justifies its current valuation.

As always, this article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not financial advice. You should consider your own risk tolerance, time horizon and diversification needs—or speak with a licensed financial adviser—before making any investment decisions.