SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Shares of Cisco Systems rose Monday morning after Credit Suisse upgraded its rating for the tech giant to outperform, citing "expected earnings momentum."
Cisco /quotes/comstock/15*!csco/quotes/nls/csco (CSCO 21.10, +0.59, +2.88%) was up more than 2% at midday after analyst Paul Silverstein raised the company's rating from neutral, saying field checks and other data point to "improving business trends at Cisco throughout the quarter."
"Our upgraded rating and increased target price is largely based on expected earnings momentum against the backdrop of what we believe remain relatively low investor expectations," Silverstein told clients in a research note.
Silverstein specifically cited "improving visibility and order trends" in North America, which makes up roughly 50% of Cisco's revenues and orders, and is "offsetting ongoing weak visibility and order trends in the rest of the world."
Still, Silverstein said the San Jose, Calif.-based networking gear maker continues to struggle with weak markets in other regions, including Europe and the Asia Pacific.
"To be clear, we are not hearing about a significant, robust improvement," Silverstein wrote. "Rather, our checks indicate that Cisco's North American enterprise business has seen steady, modest improvement throughout the quarter with Cisco gaining incremental visibility/predictability into its business and seeing modest improvement in order trends."
He said the improvements have largely come from the enterprise market, while Cisco's service provider business "continues to see weak order patterns."