With Goldman Bullish on Cisco, Should You Hold Your Nose & Buy?
By: Cisco landed on the trader radar after Goldman Sachs raised its 12-month price target on the networking giant by 34 percent to $21 Thursday, and upgraded the company to "buy" from "neutral."
"Cisco is not a 'broken' franchise," Goldman analysts said, based on conversations with customers. The analysts also said that "leading surveys suggest that Cisco’s customer franchise is still solid. Moreover, the structural issues it faces are largely contained to the switching business, which drives just one-third of sales."
With Goldman bullish Cisco, should you hold your nose & buy?
Only two out of five Fast traders could be persuaded. Here's the breakdown:
Trader Guy Adami calls Cisco "still a little bit of a disaster. I think a $15 handle is left in this stock,” he says. Steve Grasso is also bearish and trader Patty Edwards adds “the stock isn’t cheap enough given all the issues they have.”
Trader Steve Cortes, however, is intrigued. Looking at technicals he says, “If Cisco holds $15 it looks interesting,” however Cortes concedes fundamentally that the company faces headwinds given the growing austerity in state and local governments. However, when push comes to shove, Cortes says, “if Cisco trades $15.50 I’d pull the trigger.”
Trader Joe Terranova is also bullish. He says Cisco has underperformed when compared to Juniperas well as Riverbed and F5 . “Those alternatives aren’t (performing) anymore and that makes Cisco relatively more desirable to PMs.
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