Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) heads into the final weeks of 2025 trading just under the $80 mark after a powerful year-long rally driven by AI infrastructure demand, a major portfolio refresh and the ongoing integration of Splunk. At the same time, fresh research notes and trading signals released on December 10, 2025 present a more nuanced picture: Wall Street remains broadly bullish, some quant and options data point to further upside, while at least one prominent technical analyst is openly short the stock.
This article rounds up the key news, forecasts and analyses around CSCO as of December 10, 2025, and explores what they collectively imply for investors and traders.
Cisco stock today: price, performance and valuation snapshot
As of December 10, 2025, Cisco shares are trading around $79–$80, near a 12‑month high of about $80.06 and far above the 52‑week low near $52. MarketBeat’s latest institutional-flow report notes that CSCO opened Wednesday at $79.51, with a market capitalization of roughly $314 billion, a trailing price-to-earnings ratio just under 30x, a PEG ratio near 3, and a beta of 0.87, underscoring Cisco’s status as a relatively lower‑volatility large-cap tech name. [1]
Several sources highlight how strong the move has been:
- A recent Yahoo Finance valuation review pegs Cisco’s 2025 year‑to‑date return in the mid‑30% range and notes gains of roughly 37% over one year, ~75% over three years and ~107% over five years, suggesting a powerful long-term uptrend. [2]
- CoinCodex’s live tracker shows CSCO at about $79.9 with the 50‑day and 200‑day simple moving averages down in the low-to-mid‑$70s and mid‑$60s respectively, indicating a solid technical uptrend after a long consolidation. [3]
From a dividend perspective, Cisco declared a $0.41 quarterly dividend (annualized $1.64), implying a dividend yield of roughly 2.0–2.1% at current prices. [4]
In short: CSCO is now priced like a high-quality, moderately valued AI‑leveraged blue chip, not a bargain-bin turnaround.
Fundamental backdrop: a strong Q1 and raised FY 2026 guidance
Cisco’s latest earnings, released on November 12, 2025 (fiscal Q1 2026), are the cornerstone of most current analysis:
- Revenue: $14.9 billion, up 8% year-over-year.
- Non‑GAAP EPS:$1.00, up 10% versus $0.91 a year earlier and ahead of consensus.
- GAAP EPS: $0.72, up 6%.
- Product vs. services: Product revenue rose 10%, services 2%.
- Networking revenue grew 15%, Observability (where Splunk lives) grew 6%, while Security and Collaboration dipped slightly. [5]
Crucially for the AI narrative:
- Cisco disclosed $1.3 billion in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscaler customers in Q1, a “significant acceleration in growth.” [6]
- Management described a “multi‑year, multi‑billion‑dollar campus networking refresh” that is “starting to ramp,” with next‑generation switches, secure routers and Wi‑Fi 7 products ramping faster than any prior cycles. [7]
On the guidance front, Cisco raised the bar for fiscal 2026:
- FY 2026 revenue: $60.2–61.0 billion.
- FY 2026 non‑GAAP EPS:$4.08–4.14.
- Q2 2026 revenue: $15.0–15.2 billion, with non‑GAAP EPS of $1.01–1.03. [8]
At a share price just under $80, that guidance implies a forward P/E in the high‑teens on management’s earnings outlook—cheaper than many AI‑exposed peers, but more expensive than Cisco’s own historical trough valuations.
Splunk integration and the AI security/observability story
Cisco’s Splunk acquisition, completed in 2024, is central to the long‑term bull case. [9]
Recent coverage of Splunk .conf25 suggests the integration is progressing quickly and is being used to reposition Cisco as a leader in AI‑driven security and observability: [10]
- Cisco announced new Splunk Enterprise Security “Essentials” and “Premier” editions, embedding generative and “agentic” AI to automate investigations, reduce alert noise and accelerate response.
- New AI agents are being deployed across Splunk Observability Cloud, AppDynamics and ThousandEyes, designed to automatically analyze incidents, identify root causes and monitor AI workloads themselves.
- Cisco is using Splunk as the “connective tissue” to unify telemetry from its previously siloed observability products, offering end‑to‑end visibility from applications to the network. [11]
For stock watchers, this matters because it expands Cisco’s recurring, software‑heavy revenue and tightens its grip on enterprise security budgets—both important levers for margins and valuation multiples.
Wall Street view: “Moderate Buy” with upside to the mid‑$80s (and beyond)
A December 8, 2025 MarketBeat survey of broker research gives Cisco a consensus “Moderate Buy” rating: [12]
- 26 analysts are counted: 17 Buy ratings and 9 Hold ratings.
- The average 12‑month price target sits around $84–85 per share.
- Several large banks have moved their targets up in recent weeks, with Citigroup, Rosenblatt, JPMorgan and BNP Paribas Exane all lifting CSCO into the mid‑$80s to $100 target range while maintaining bullish ratings. [13]
MarketBeat’s institutional-flow articles published today (December 10) add some nuance: [14]
- Intact Investment Management reduced its Cisco stake by about 12.7% in Q2, while WINTON GROUP cut its holdings by ~86%, though both still own shares.
- At the same time, earlier coverage noted State Street modestly increasing its already large stake, now owning nearly 4.9% of Cisco, worth more than $13 billion. [15]
Across these filings, the big picture is that institutional ownership remains robust (over 70%), but some managers are using the rally to rebalance.
Zacks, via a December 9 note syndicated on Finviz, focuses more on earnings momentum: [16]
- Current‑quarter EPS is expected at $1.02, up 8.5% year-over-year.
- Full‑year EPS consensus is about $4.1 for the current fiscal year and $4.4 for the next, implying 7–8% annual EPS growth.
- Estimate revisions have been slightly positive for the next fiscal year over the last month.
- Even so, Zacks assigns Cisco a Value Score of “D”, arguing the stock trades at a premium to peers on several valuation metrics and thus earns a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold)—a forecast for performance roughly in line with the broader market. [17]
Taken together, Wall Street’s message is cautiously bullish: Cisco is financially strong and AI‑levered, but after a big run the easy value case is less obvious.
Fresh trading signals from December 10: bears vs. quants vs. options whales
1. A new short call from DailyForex
The most eye‑catching piece of December 10 analysis comes from DailyForex, where analyst Adam Lemon argues that Cisco’s rally may have run too far, too fast. [18]
Key points from his short trade idea:
- Suggested short entry zone: between $78.51 and $80.06, roughly where CSCO is trading now.
- Take‑profit zone: around $62–$66, implying meaningful downside.
- Stop‑loss zone: roughly $84.8–$87.3, aligned with the upper end of recent analyst price targets.
- The thesis points to:
- Declining operating and profit margins,
- Rising long‑term debt,
- Single‑digit EPS growth expectations, and
- A trailing P/E around 30.7x, which Lemon characterizes as expensive for Cisco’s growth profile, even if still cheaper than the Nasdaq‑100’s ~34.7x multiple. [19]
The article also notes that CSCO is sitting inside a horizontal resistance zone, with fading volume on recent gains and some negative divergence on the Bull Bear Power indicator—classic signs of a potentially exhausted uptrend.
2. Quant and technical models: short‑term bullish, 12‑month cautious
CoinCodex, which runs a purely algorithmic forecast, paints a more nuanced picture updated December 10: [20]
- Current price: about $79.9.
- 5‑day prediction: move up to around $80.66, a gain of roughly 1–1.5%.
- 1‑month prediction: around $83.24, implying ~4.7% upside.
- Technical sentiment: labeled “Bullish”, with 26 technical indicators flashing bullish and 0 bearish; CSCO has logged 17 green days out of the last 30 and displayed moderate (3.4%) volatility.
- BUT: their 1‑year forecast is $65.8, implying ~17% downside from current levels; their long‑term 2030 forecast is only modestly higher than today’s price.
Because the model blends short-term momentum with longer‑horizon mean‑reversion assumptions, it essentially says: “trend is your friend now, but don’t extrapolate 2025’s run indefinitely.”
3. Options market: bullish call buying at the $80 strike
Data from Benzinga’s “whale activity” report on December 10 shows notable call activity in Cisco: [21]
- A bullish CSCO call trade on the $80 strike expiring January 16, 2026 carried a total trade value of about $26,000, with sizeable open interest and volume at that strike.
While a single trade doesn’t define sentiment, it fits with the broader picture of options speculators positioning for at least modest upside through early 2026, even as some fundamental and macro analysts warn about stretched tech valuations.
Other December 10 Cisco news: Wi‑Fi 7 momentum and innovation headlines
Beyond direct stock calls, several company and industry updates released today add important context:
- Wi‑Fi 7 adoption: A new Dell’Oro Group report notes that Wi‑Fi 7 is Cisco’s fastest‑ramping WLAN technology ever. Although Cisco was “late to the Wi‑Fi 7 party,” aggressive pricing helped it leap to first place in Wi‑Fi 7 revenue, and the technology is ramping faster for Cisco than any prior Wi‑Fi standard. [22]
- ESG and digital inclusion: A Yahoo Finance/ACCESS Newswire piece highlights Cisco’s work with NIIT Foundation to strengthen cyber resilience in India as the country digitizes, underscoring Cisco’s ongoing social-impact and government partnerships across emerging markets. [23]
- Quantum networking: Cloud Wars reports that IBM and Cisco have unveiled an ambitious blueprint for long‑distance quantum networks, an early step toward a “quantum internet” that will require advanced networking hardware, software and security—Cisco’s core domains. [24]
These stories don’t move the stock overnight, but they reinforce the idea that Cisco is deeply embedded in multiple future‑facing technology curves: Wi‑Fi 7, observability, AI security and even quantum‑ready networks.
Valuation: fairly priced quality, or getting expensive?
Current commentary is split on whether CSCO still offers attractive value:
- The Yahoo Finance valuation piece that looked at Cisco’s 33.4% YTD gain concluded that despite the run, the stock still screens as undervalued on several fundamental checks, particularly versus the broader tech sector. [25]
- MarketBeat data, however, points to a P/E just under 30x and a PEG near 3, numbers that would have seemed rich for Cisco prior to the AI era, even if they are still lower than many pure‑play AI or semiconductor names. [26]
- Zacks gives Cisco a Value grade of “D”, explicitly arguing that the stock “trades at a premium to peers,” and therefore may not be compelling for strictly value‑oriented investors at current levels. [27]
- The DailyForex piece leans hard into this angle, highlighting the high P/E, slowing margins and only single‑digit EPS growth as justification for a short bias. [28]
On the other side of the debate, qualitative bulls (including some analysts on Seeking Alpha, though their full articles are paywalled) emphasize: [29]
- Cisco’s strong free cash flow,
- The continued shift toward recurring and subscription revenue,
- Its leverage to the AI data‑center build‑out, and
- A dividend and buyback program that returns billions annually to shareholders.
From this vantage point, Cisco looks more like an “overlooked cash machine” powering the AI infrastructure boom rather than an overpriced legacy hardware vendor.
Key risks investors should track
Across today’s research and recent filings, several risk themes recur:
- Margin pressure: Cisco’s non‑GAAP gross margin slipped year-over-year (from 69.3% to 68.1%), and some analysts worry that aggressive pricing in Wi‑Fi 7 and AI infrastructure, as well as competitive intensity in security, could pressure margins further. [30]
- Debt and balance sheet: While Cisco’s balance sheet is still strong, critics point to higher long‑term debt post‑Splunk and question whether single‑digit EPS growth fully compensates for the increased leverage. [31]
- Insider selling: Multiple MarketBeat articles highlight that Cisco insiders, including the CEO and an EVP, have collectively sold over 1 million shares (~$80 million) in the past ninety days—understandable after a big rally, but still a datapoint for cautious investors. [32]
- Competition in AI networking and security: Cisco is battling Arista, Huawei, Juniper/HPE, Palo Alto Networks and many others across its core markets. Zacks’ note hints that Cisco’s valuation premium vs. peers leaves less room for error if AI spending slows or competitors execute better. [33]
- Model risk in algorithmic forecasts: Quant models like CoinCodex’s currently call the short-term trend bullish but forecast ~17% downside over the next year. Whether those models ultimately prove right or wrong, they capture the idea that mean reversion is a real possibility after such a steep multi‑year climb. [34]
What it all means for CSCO on December 10, 2025
Putting today’s news, forecasts and analyses together, a coherent picture emerges:
- Fundamentals: Cisco just delivered a solid quarter, beat expectations, raised full‑year guidance and is deeply tied into AI, security and observability trends. [35]
- Sentiment:
- Valuation & risk: After a big multi‑year run and with a trailing P/E around 30x, Cisco no longer looks like a classic deep value stock. Bears point to margin pressure, debt, insider selling and only mid‑single‑digit to high‑single‑digit EPS growth as justification for short setups around current resistance. [38]
For long‑term investors, today’s mosaic suggests Cisco is evolving into a steady AI infrastructure and security platform with strong cash flows, a reasonable (though not cheap) valuation and a shareholder‑friendly capital return policy. For short‑term traders, the tension between short calls like DailyForex’s and bullish quant/option signals around $80 creates a classic battleground.
Either way, December 10, 2025 marks an important checkpoint: Cisco is no longer being priced as a sleepy legacy router company, but as a central player in the next decade’s AI‑driven networking, security and observability stack.
References
1. www.marketbeat.com, 2. finance.yahoo.com, 3. coincodex.com, 4. newsroom.cisco.com, 5. newsroom.cisco.com, 6. newsroom.cisco.com, 7. newsroom.cisco.com, 8. newsroom.cisco.com, 9. investor.cisco.com, 10. siliconangle.com, 11. siliconangle.com, 12. www.marketbeat.com, 13. www.marketbeat.com, 14. www.marketbeat.com, 15. www.marketbeat.com, 16. finviz.com, 17. finviz.com, 18. www.dailyforex.com, 19. www.dailyforex.com, 20. coincodex.com, 21. www.benzinga.com, 22. www.delloro.com, 23. finance.yahoo.com, 24. cloudwars.com, 25. finance.yahoo.com, 26. www.marketbeat.com, 27. finviz.com, 28. www.dailyforex.com, 29. seekingalpha.com, 30. newsroom.cisco.com, 31. www.dailyforex.com, 32. www.marketbeat.com, 33. finviz.com, 34. coincodex.com, 35. newsroom.cisco.com, 36. www.marketbeat.com, 37. coincodex.com, 38. www.dailyforex.com
