CSCO - Cisco Systems Inc - Page 51

Ka-boom!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quintious 

Ka-boom!

Ouchies. Glad I had my shares swept away at $19 via covered calls. :)

almost 6% down today! getting hit pretty hard

This company remains a shorting opportunity as long as Chambers is in control.  He has no ideas.  He hasn't come up with anything in order to deal with the assault on market space all sorts of competitors have launched against Cisco.  The only solution he's been able to implement for a while now is to lay off workforce (another 2% announced today) in order to reduce employee costs to artificially bolster the balance sheets.  Investors are tired of seeing that tired routine.

The product lifecycle upgrade is, for all intents and purposes, over.  The 2012 fiscal year was the last real heavy year of it, and most companies burned through their 2012 budgets months ago.  2013 is going to be soft across the board in that regard.  The only new product they've released is an improved supervisor module for their 6509 switches - which is a welcome addition, but not something that's going to generate huge revenue on its own.  Might even harm it a bit, as it allows companies to not be forced into buying Nexus machines.

Fundamentally, the company has no answers, and until a change happens at the top and someone takes over that will consolidate Cisco's lineup and narrow their focus, they will continue to have their lunch eaten by hungrier, more agile, better staffed competitors. Can't just keep laying people off and shouldering more work on other engineers or else hiring cheaper labor in Russia.  That's what got Cisco into this mess in the first place, and after this latest round of layoffs, even more of their top talent not on the chopping block is going to jump ship.  This company is a mess, fundamentally.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) was upgraded at FBR Capital Markets to market perform from underperform. $19 price target. Company appears to be gaining momentum in the SDN area, FBR Capital Markets said.