The stock of Cisco Systems (CSCO) has closed at its first new record high since right before the internet bubble burst back in 2000.
It took 25 years, but Cisco’s stock closed at $80.25 U.S. per share on Dec. 10, topping its previous all-time high of $80.06 U.S. reached on March 27, 2000, the day the company surpassed Microsoft (MSFT) to become the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.
Cisco’s networking equipment served as the backbone of the internet boom in the late 1990s and its shares were red hot at the turn of the century.
Back then, investors saw Cisco as a way to bet on the growth of the internet as companies that wanted to get online relied upon the hardware maker’s switches and routers.
The dot-com bubble bursting put an end to Cisco’s great run, wiping out 80% of the Nasdaq index’s value by October 2002.
While Cisco survived the early 2000s bear market, its stock had never fully recovered until now.
Analysts say that Cisco has successfully diversified its business through a series of acquisitions such as software companies Webex, AppDynamics, and Splunk.
So far, CSCO stock has increased 36% this year, giving it a market capitalization of $317 billion U.S. and making it the 13th most valuable U.S. technology company.
Somewhat ironically, Cisco’s stock is once again at an all-time high as worries grow about another bubble forming in technology stocks, this time related to artificial intelligence (A.I.).
Cisco itself is aiming to benefit from the current A.I. craze, with management touting $1.3 billion U.S. in A.I. infrastructure orders during this year’s third quarter.
Tech Insider
