What Happened?
Shares of networking technology giant Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) jumped 14.6% in the morning session after it reported first-quarter results that topped Wall Street's expectations and provided surprisingly strong guidance for the upcoming quarter.
Cisco raised its fiscal 2026 AI infrastructure order outlook from $5 billion to $9 billion, 4.5 times what it booked in all of fiscal 2025, after hyperscaler AI orders alone reached $1.9 billion in a single quarter, more than triple the $600 million from the same period last year. CEO Chuck Robbins confirmed five new hyperscaler design wins in the quarter, including the first deployments of Cisco's proprietary Silicon One P200 chip in scale-across data centre configurations.
For years, Cisco was seen as a mature enterprise-networking company with limited AI exposure. The $9 billion AI order figure reframes that entirely: Cisco's custom silicon and Acacia optics business, are now a direct pick-and-shovel play on the same hyperscaler buildout driving NVIDIA's results. This combination of a solid quarterly performance and a robust forecast reassured investors about the company's growth trajectory.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Cisco’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 1 move greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Cisco and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 12 months ago when the stock gained 6.7% on the news that the company reported impressive first quarter 2025 results which beat analysts' sales and earnings estimates.
In addition, Cisco increased its EPS guidance for next quarter. The main story here was the steady growth, with revenue up 11% thanks to strong demand for AI and security products. On the other hand, its EBITDA missed, but this print still had some key positives.
Cisco is up 54.8% since the beginning of the year, and at $117.70 per share, has set a new 52-week high. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Cisco’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $2,225.
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