Tech Roundup: Analysts Are Upbeat On Cisco’s Stock, and More

Cisco’s shares took a dip last week, after the computer networking giant released a weak sales outlook for its fourth quarter. However, analysts this week are saying, it may not be as bad as we think. Barclays analyst Jeff Kvaal released a research note Wednesday raising his rating on the stock from “Overweight” to “Equal Weight,” stating that, in the past, Cisco has done fairly well even during economic downturns like the one it faces today. He also stated he thinks that, even if the economy does worsen in the near future, that the stock won’t fall much more than it already has. Forbes analyst Eric Savitz echoed Kvaal’s sentiments in an article published later in the day on Wednesday, positing that now may be the time to “jump into Cisco shares,” before their outlook starts looking a little rosier.

Analysts can’t seem to agree on shares of Milpitas-based KLA-Tencor lately. In late April, KLA-Tencor released its third-quarter financial results, citing a 2.1 percent drop in profits. Still, the company’s stock price rose 2.7 percent to $56.60 in after-hours trading that day, and is up roughly 3 percent in the past year-to-date. Today, the stock is trading at around $49.64. In the weeks since its financial results, JP Morgan Chase downgraded its rating of the stock from “Neutral” to “Underweight,” and suggested a 15 percent downside to its current price of $49.64. However, Zolmax News quotes Piper Jaffrays as rating the stock as “Overweight” with a price target of $59-62, and analysts at Citigroup have reportedly issued a “buy” recommendation on the stock. Who would you believe? KLA-Tencor is engaged in the design, manufacture and marketing of process control and yield management solutions for the semiconductor and related nanoelectronics industries.

Milpitas-based Aquantia, a developer of high-speed Ethernet connectivity solutions for cloud computing and large-scale data center deployments, announced this week that is has just completed a Series F financing of $35 million. Its newest investor, Russian-based RUSNANO, lead the round, with other new and current investors contributing $10 million to the round. Aquantia indicated in a press release part of the financing will go toward the establishment of a new design center in Russia. The Russian R&D center will support the Milpitas-based headquarters’ R&D group in chip design and software development, as well as product testing.

Milpitas-based Intersil, which specializes in the design and manufacture of high-performance analog and mixed signal semiconductors, this week unveiled its newly redesigned company website, which it said “takes a completely different, radically new approach to supporting the engineering design process.” The company is calling its new web presence “intuitive, intelligent, and easy to use,” and “a complete ecosystem of resources for design engineers.” In a press release this week, Intersil reps said the new website aims to “support users at any stage of the product development cycle, including research, product selection, design, analysis and purchasing.”