Is It Time to Buy, Sell, or Hold Cisco Stock Ahead of Q1 Earnings?
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Nov 10 2025
0mins
Should l Buy CSCO?
Source: NASDAQ.COM
Upcoming Earnings Release: Cisco Systems is set to announce its first-quarter fiscal 2026 results on November 12, with expected revenues between $14.65 billion and $14.85 billion and non-GAAP earnings projected at 97 to 99 cents per share.
Growth Drivers: The anticipated results are expected to benefit from increased demand for networking products, particularly in switching and enterprise routing, as well as Cisco's advancements in AI and security solutions, including the integration of NVIDIA's technology.
Stock Performance and Valuation: Cisco shares have risen 20.1% year-to-date, underperforming some competitors but outperforming others. The stock is considered to have a stretched valuation, trading at a higher price/sales ratio compared to industry peers.
Challenges Ahead: Despite positive growth prospects, Cisco faces challenges such as slowing networking revenue momentum, stiff competition from companies like Arista Networks and Dell Technologies, and a challenging macroeconomic environment, leading to a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
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Analyst Views on CSCO
Wall Street analysts forecast CSCO stock price to rise
13 Analyst Rating
10 Buy
3 Hold
0 Sell
Strong Buy
Current: 75.000
Low
76.00
Averages
91.30
High
100.00
Current: 75.000
Low
76.00
Averages
91.30
High
100.00
About CSCO
Cisco Systems, Inc. designs and sells a range of technologies that power the Internet. The Company is integrating its product portfolios across networking, security, collaboration, applications and cloud. The Company's segments include the Americas; Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), and Asia Pacific, Japan, and China (APJC). Its Networking product category represents its core networking technologies of switching, routing, wireless, fifth generation (5G), silicon, optics solutions and compute products. Its Security product category consists of its cloud and application security, industrial security, network security, and user and device security offerings. Its Collaboration product category consists of its meetings, collaboration devices, calling, contact center and platform as a service (CPaaS) offering. Its Observability product category consists of its full stack observability offerings.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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- AI Panic Trade: The launch of a new freight efficiency platform by an AI firm has spooked markets, leading to sharp declines in traditionally resilient trucking and logistics stocks, as fears grow over the vulnerability of labor-intensive business models to automation.
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