Cisco Is Top-Performing Dow Stock of 2019

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 30, 8:23PM EST · Published May 25, 9:05AM EDT

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Cisco Is Top-Performing Dow Stock of 2019 — © raisbeckfoto / Getty Images

The Dow Jones industrial average is composed of 30 stocks. The average is up 9.68% to 25,585.69 this year. That rise has been outpaced by tech mainstay Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO | CSCO Price Prediction), which is 25.48% higher so far to $54.37. That barely edged out American Express, which is up 25.38% to $119.51.

One reason for the surge is the recent report of Cisco’s quarterly earnings for the period that ended April 27. Revenue rose 4% year over year to $13 billion. Net income was up 13% to $3 billion. Per-share earnings rose 23% to $0.69.

Comments quoted by MarketWatch offer an additional reason for the stock price:

Raymond James analyst Simon Leopold wrote that the company continues to see high enterprise spending, despite concerns that macroeconomic uncertainty would prompt a slowdown, especially after a strong 2018. Cisco also shrugged off tariff fears, and Leopold expects that the company would pass on any cost increases to its customers.

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TheStreet’s Jim Cramer commented that Cisco spotted trade problems that might affect its results early instead of adopting a wait-and-see position:

Cisco did not take that tack. Six months ago Cisco adopted a “hope for the best prepare for the worst” strategy where the company simultaneously pleaded its case but shifted sourcing with alacrity to all over the globe. That’s how CEO Chuck Robbins could say on the conference call: “…and so last week when we saw the indication that the tariffs were going to move to 25% on Friday morning the teams kicked in and we actually have executed completely on everything that we need to do to deal with the tariffs.”

As broadband, both wireline and wireless, grows, Cisco’s suite of products, from routers to security products to enterprise cloud centers, are likely to be in greater and greater demand. Its recent quarter should be a preview of more solid results for the balance of the year.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.