Is Cisco Systems the new king of Silicon Valley?
The company’s stock reached an all-time high today as it rides Wall Street’s current obsession with firms that build the hardware and software that make up the nation’s high-speed networks. That follows some bragging rights Cisco claimed last week when it displaced chip manufacturer Intel as the most valuable firm in Silicon Valley, with a market capitalization of about $280 billion. Cisco’s steadily climbing stock price coincides with a series of successes for networking upstarts such as Juniper Networks, Sycamore Networks and Foundry Networks, all of which recently experienced wildly successful initial public offerings. Cisco shares, which gained 19 cents today to close at 84.19, have surged 146 percent in the past year. Earlier in the day the shares traded as high as 86.19. The recent jump in Cisco shares caps a stunning decade for the company, which went public in 1990 when it sold 2.8 million shares for $18. Since then the stock has had eight splits, one each year except 1995. Six
