Cisco Systems (CSCO)

[Gbathat]

Another buyback announcement that serves as possibly a better reference is Oracle. They announced 12B increase in buyback on 14 DEC.

Their market cap is similar to csco. They are in a related industry and have a similar p/e. They are up about 20 percent on the year, similar to CSCO. One difference is CSCO pays about a 2X higher dividend. Oracle has a higher price forecast in terms of percent increase relative to current PPS.

The oracle buyback announcement resulted in only minor price movement, which means it was effectively priced in during the rally.

So bottom line, I think we need a big buyback number from CSCO in order to get much movement upwards. I would guesstimate that the first 15B on whatever they might announce is mostly priced into the current PPS.

I'm hoping for at least 30B. Of course, they will have in the neighborhood of up to 60B repatriated, based on their overseas hoarder cash. So they could maybe even go higher.

All hopeful speculation on my part. Time will tell.

Ball is in CFO Kramer's court now. Congress and POTUS did their part, on schedule, amazingly.


Related info from Cisco earnings call on 15 Nov 2017

James Faucette -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Thanks very much. I wanted to ask a question on capital structure. Can you give us an idea of what your preferences and priorities will be in capital structure in terms of buybacks and acquisitions, etc. if the proposed new tax changes pass versus if that change in tax law gets derailed? I'm particularly curious as to how you're thinking about the pacing of acquisitions versus buybacks, etc.

Thank you.

Kelly Kramer -- Chief Financial Officer

I'll take that one. What I'd say is in terms of acquisitions, the tax policy isn't impacting us either way because we are lucky to have a great cash flow and access to capital. So, it hasn't been stopping us from anything from an acquisition perspective and it won't. So, that will continue.

I would say we're definitely encouraged by the progress that's going on, on the tax reform. So, like we said in the past, when that happens and if we get a repatriation which both plans currently have, we're going to continue like we have, growing or dividend with our earnings growth and where we have opportunity is really to get much more aggressive than we have been on the share buyback and of course we want to make sure we continue to have enough firepower to continue to be able to do the right acquisitions to help position Cisco right for the long term.

https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2017/11/16/cisco-systems-csco-q1-2018-earnings-conference-cal.aspx