CSCO

A $270 billion networking equipment maker Cisco set its new all-time peak this week. With the company being a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) index, which includes the largest 30 stable U.S.-rooted businesses, this also helped the DJIA to show its best since late March, touching the milestone area above 43,000. DJIA is now less than 2,000 points, or about 5%, away from the all-time records of 45,000+, which was posted during a post-election market rally in 2024, and there is little doubt that higher levels will be seen already in the coming months.

Cisco has become the second giant company after Nvidia to leapfrog the former obstacles near its previous historical peaks after a market-wide correction that took place in early April on global trade barriers' concerns. The fog of tariff war doubts continues to clear.

The Internet of Things industry is one of the drivers of demand for Cisco products. Cisco's next quarterly earnings call on August 13 is still a long way off, but the stock is still rising during the financial off-season on ratings hikes and some positive news. On June 16, 2025, Cisco had a Tech Talk to discuss its innovations, with Samik Chatterjee, managing director at JPMorgan as host. By the way, JPMorgan analysts maintained their Overweight rating on Cisco stock, with potential to hit a price target of $73 at least. The way Cisco is involved in revolutionizing its customers' connection and  protection in the AI era was the main topic. The talk was focused on AI-powered solutions to enhance productivity and create a stronger digital resilience. These trendy themes had inspired investors.

Deutsche Bank stated that it is now bullish on Cisco, citing AI tailwind, even though the share price is so historically high. In its clients' note this Monday, Deutsche Bank analysts upgraded Cisco shares from Hold to Buy, while raising their price target on the stock from $65 to $73. Cisco closed above $68 the day after, with its post-weekend gain of 3% and almost 8% since the beginning of June. The bank emphasized Cisco's “improved visibility towards durable mid-single-digit growth in upcoming years,” based on AI-related enterprise deployments and sovereign spending, as 56% of total revenue is coming from subscription software and services. The Cisco Campus portfolio, which encompasses a range of hardware, software, and solutions to build enterprise-grade local area networks within a defined geographic area like a university or corporate campus, was especially mentioned in the forecast as one of the growth pillars. "Cisco’s breadth of supply chain enables it to more deftly navigate incremental tariffs and re-invest in growth,” Deutsche Bank wrote.

Some in the market are concerned about Cisco's similar history of strong growth in the 1990s, when venture capital became the main source of that time's rally. Many dotcom start-ups had business models, which eventually failed before 2000 and made Cisco’s earnings and market price peaking just above $50 per share. The dotcom confidence crisis sparked a very sharp downturn to as low as $10 per share just several months later. However, the sales niche has expanded remarkably over the recent 25 years. In 2000, Internet businesses were a novelty, but now Cisco relies on orders from already established large companies. Therefore, it is unlikely that anything may actually threaten the current wave of Cisco growth before higher goals are achieved.

Moreover, from a purely technical perspective, the historically important $50 per share resistance was broken not by emotion in one day, but during a major gradual assault that lasted from 2019 to 2025, with the price climbing and then updating its highs at intervals of a year or two each time between successful attempts to break higher. So, Cisco's new share price record looks set to withstand further tests of strength.