4-Star Stocks Poised to Pop: Cisco Systems

Based on the aggregated intelligence of 110,000 investors participating in Motley Fool CAPS, the Fool's free investing community, networking giant Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO  ) has earned a respected four-star ranking. While five-star stocks have been the best performers, our data has shown that four-star stocks still outshine the market by a significant margin; conversely, low-rated stocks have woefully lagged the market average.

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at Cisco's business, and see what CAPS investors are saying about the stock right now.

Cisco facts

Headquarters (Founded)	San Jose, California (1984)
Market Cap	$141.36 billion
Industry	Networking & Communications Equipment
TTM Revenue	$38.61 billion
Management	CEO John Chambers; CFO Frank Calderoni
Return on Equity (avg. last three years)	25%
CAPS members bullish on CSCO also bullish on	Microsoft (NYSE: MSFT  ) Google (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) General Electric (NYSE: GE  )
CAPS members bearish on CSCO also bearish on	Ford Motor (NYSE: F  ) General Motors (NYSE: GM  ) Dell (Nasdaq: DELL  )

Sources: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's, and Motley Fool CAPS. TTM = trailing 12 months.

Over on CAPS, fully 1,470 of the 1,528 All-Star members who have rated Cisco -- some 96% -- believe the stock will outperform the S&P 500 going forward. These All-Star bulls include ikkyu2 and bubc, both of whom are ranked in the top 10% of our community.

Last week, ikkyu2 confidently declared that "this best-in-class, well-managed tech company, that pretty much gets captive business from every mid-cap and large-cap worldwide, has been beaten down too much relative to its future prospects, and will rebound."

An earlier pitch from bubc in 2007 followed that line of thinking, underscoring Cisco's worldwide growth opportunities:

Cisco dominates the networking space. Over the next few years, more and more businesses will build out their infrastructure with new value-added content becoming more important (lots of video on demand, etc.) The need for better and more networking equipment will be there-thus leading to stronger and stronger profits for Cisco. Also, China is JUST starting to network the country, so Cisco will be able to significantly increase their profits.

What do you think about Cisco -- or any other stock, for that matter? Make your voice heard on Motley Fool CAPS today. More than 110,000 investors are waiting to hear what you have to say. CAPS is 100% free, so simply click here to get started.