Shares of Cisco Systems Inc slipped in active trading on Friday after the Menlo Park networking systems and software specialist reported fiscal fourth-quarter profits on the low side of Wall Street’s expectations – figures, page five: the shares shed 50 cents to $23 – despite the company saying that it would be buying in 7m of them to meet the needs of employee stock plans; analysts noted that in a conference call, Cisco said that its book-to-bill ratio climbed to 1.0 in the fourth quarter, and that its gross margins also increased.
