Cisco Systems (CSCO) closed the latest trading day at $52.85, indicating a +0.38% change from the previous session's end. The stock's performance was behind the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.4%. Elsewhere, the Dow saw an upswing of 0.62%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq appreciated by 0.6%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the seller of routers, switches, software and services had gained 5.62% over the past month. This has outpaced the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 0.91% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.71% in that time.

The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Cisco Systems in its upcoming release. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.87, down 21.62% from the prior-year quarter. Alongside, our most recent consensus estimate is anticipating revenue of $13.76 billion, indicating a 6.22% downward movement from the same quarter last year.

Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $3.56 per share and revenue of $55.61 billion, indicating changes of -4.56% and +3.36%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for Cisco Systems. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, upbeat changes in estimates indicate analysts' favorable outlook on the company's business health and profitability.

Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. To utilize this, we have created the Zacks Rank, a proprietary model that integrates these estimate changes and provides a functional rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has witnessed a 0.04% increase. Cisco Systems is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Looking at valuation, Cisco Systems is presently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 14.8. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 13.5, so one might conclude that Cisco Systems is trading at a premium comparatively.

We can additionally observe that CSCO currently boasts a PEG ratio of 3.38. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The average PEG ratio for the Computer - Networking industry stood at 1.22 at the close of the market yesterday.

The Computer - Networking industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 146, putting it in the bottom 43% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the vigor of our specific industry groups by computing the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks incorporated in the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.

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