Suppose you were stranded on a deserted island and could own just one single stock. What would it be? Think about it for a minute. Would it be a stock that's been battered this spring and is down 20% from its high? A stock that trades at more than 100 times earnings? A stock that's already climbed around 100,000% since going public ten years ago, that's already enjoyed one of the greatest rides in stock market history? The stock of a company that now faces unprecedented challenges in tough new markets dominated by the likes of Lucent and Nortel, plus a posse of red-hot upstarts?
Yup, that would be the stock. No matter how you cut it, you've got to own Cisco.
Millions of investors around the world--Cisco now has 3,530,662 shareholders (including me, with my few hundred shares)--might well agree with you. Except for those who bought the stock in the past few weeks, we're probably talking about the happiest group of people on earth.
English: John T. Chambers, Chairman and Chief Exec...
DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 30JAN10 - John T. Chambers, Cha...
Kara Swisher and John ChambersHow happy? Well, on March 27, Cisco overtook Microsoft as the most valuable business on earth, with a market cap of $531 billion. Yes, GE now holds the crown, but who are you going to bet on in this race? GE, growing 15% annually, or Cisco, growing more than twice as fast?
Five years ago you might have looked at Cisco and said, "Well, sure, this is a great company, but really, how big can it get? All it does is connect computers. Microsoft, on the other hand, sells the operating system for every PC in the world. That is huge." How times have changed! As the Internet Revolution sweeps through civilization, networking--connecting computers--may well be the most critical, fastest-growing facet of the world's economy. Even Microsofties have to admit that the network has...