Cisco Earnings Beat: 2013 Off to Slow Start, but Steady Improvement

We surmised that the earnings report may help it breakout after being held down for years and years. We would note that Wall Street’s consensus analyst price target was up at $22.82 according to Thomson Reuters.

Cash flows from operations were $3.3 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2013, and cash and cash equivalents and investments were $46.4 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Here is the share buyback update: Cisco repurchased approximately 25 million shares of common stock under the stock repurchase program at an average price of $20.15 per share for an aggregate purchase price of $500 million. As of January 26, 2013, Cisco had repurchased and retired 3.8 billion shares of Cisco common stock at an average price of $20.34 per share for an aggregate purchase price of approximately $76.9 billion since the inception of the stock repurchase program. The remaining authorized amount for stock repurchases under this program is approximately $5.1 billion with no termination date.

Cisco shares closed up 0.8% at $21.14 and the stock is up 1.4% at $21.38 in the after-hours reaction. We would note that the prior 52-week trading range is $14.96 to $21.34.

Until guidance is offered up in the conference call we would consider this to be unfinished business. CEO and Chairman John Chambers did just tell CNBC that 2013 is off to a very slow start with steady improvement.