Cisco Systems Inc. shares added more than $10 billion in market capitalization Thursday, but Wall Street analysts were still debating whether promises of strong sales growth in the coming months were a short-term product of supply improving or signs that tech demand is coming back. Cisco’s
CSCO,
+5.24%
stock increased 5.2%, pushing the company’s market cap back above $200 billion and nearly to $210 billion with the addition of roughly $10.43 billion from Thursday’s gain. The move was a response to Cisco’s fiscal second-quarter results, which beat expectations, as well as executives’ big boost to sales expectations for the full year.
While at least 13 analysts celebrated that news Thursday morning by raising their price targets on the stock, there were no upgrades as a debate ensued. Cisco’s orders declined by more than 20% even as sales jumped and were predicted to continue rising strongly, which suggested to some that the bright future is just a product of component-supply issues that hurt Cisco last year and have now eased — for the time being. For more: Cisco made it through a pandemic pothole, and the stock is driving higher “We expect weaker macro to eventually impact Cisco’s top-line growth,” Barclays analysts wrote while maintaining an “equal weight” rating and raising their price target to $52 from $46. “While backlog is still meaningful right now, we do see some risks when visibility returns to normal levels.” The concern …