We recently published a list of Kevin O’Leary’s Stock Portfolio: 15 Stock Picks for 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) stands against other Kevin O’Leary’s stock picks for 2025.

Television personality, financier, and entrepreneur, Kevin O’Leary, also known as ‘Mr. Wonderful’ is recognized mostly as one of the panelists on the reality shows Shark Tank and Dragon’s Den. In 1986, the Irish-Canadian began his business career by launching the educational software company Softkey with $10,000 from his mother’s investment and leveraging the proceeds from the sale of his SET share.

When it comes to stock investing, Mr. Wonderful seeks names that meet three criteria: They must be quality companies that boast consistently strong financial performance and a solid balance sheet. Second, he believes that a stock portfolio must be diverse across multiple market sectors. Most importantly, however, he demands income, stressing that the companies he invests in should be ones that pay dividends to shareholders. The ALPS O’Shares U.S. Quality Dividend ETF, an ETF offered by O’Shares Investment Advisors, aims to encompass O’Leary’s strategies by holding stocks that combine all three of these characteristics. Since its launch, the ETF has returned 115.18% to shareholders. While high-risk, high-reward investments like those on Shark Tank or volatile assets like Bitcoin can be thrilling, O’Leary believes that a focus on consistent, dependable income should be the basis of a sound portfolio.  The venture capitalist summed up this view in a LinkedIn post:

“OUSA is part of the S&P 500, cherry-picking the highest quality balance sheets with positive cash flow from around 100 out of the 500 names. Then there’s OUSM, which grabs the Russell 2000 and weeds out the underperformers – those companies not making any real dough. Forget Shark Tank, forget Bitcoin. Sure, I’ve got a 5% stake in Bitcoin and another 5% in gold, but the meat of my US portfolio? It’s in OUSA or OUSM.”

The Race for TikTok

Former president Joe Biden recently signed a bipartisan bill that deemed TikTok a national security threat and required Bytedance, the platform’s Chinese parent company, to either sell or divest from the platform completely in order for the social media platform to remain available in the United States. During a recent appearance on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom”, Kevin O’Leary claimed to have made an offer of $20 billion in cash to TikTok’s owners to purchase the platform, saying “Right now, $20 billion is on the table, cash, cash, $20 billion.” However, he added that the federal government wasn’t able to verify whether the data of American account holders was actually being shared with Chinese leaders. That said, he believes the risk wasn’t worth it. Moreover, in light of the dwindling timeframe, he said that companies are weighing the risks of maintaining the app’s availability in the U.S., while keeping in mind the potential penalties for any provider who permits access beyond the cutoff date.

“As of midnight on the 19, any service provider … that could be an Apple, that could be an Oracle, it could be a video compression technology company that’s being paid as a consulting service, any of them that keep this thing alive is subject to $5,000 a day fine times 170 million. That’s over a billion dollars a day.”

Our Methodology

O’Leary typically favors equities of well-established, financially stable companies with strong balance sheets and a history of consistent dividend growth. The following holdings are the top 15 from the ALPS O’Shares U.S. Quality Dividend ETF (BATS:OUSA). For these stocks, we have also provided the hedge fund sentiment, as of Q3 2024.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points. (see more details here).

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 60

Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is a renowned technology company involved in networking and IT solutions, leveraging AI to optimize network performance, enhance security, and automate IT operations. The company is known for designing and selling networking hardware, software, and telecommunications equipment. In addition, Cisco provides servers, hyperconverged infrastructure, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based cloud management tools for data centers.

The company reported strong earnings in fiscal Q1 2025, with revenues of $13.8 billion. Although this was a decrease from the previous year, it still surpassed analysts’ expectations by $70.5 million. Moreover, the company reported a net income of $2.7 billion for the quarter and maintained its strong financial position.

According to Citi analysts, Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is expected to benefit from improved market dynamics for campus-based hardware that connects end-user devices. In a note to clients on January 17, Citi stated that demand for so-called campus switches, which account for roughly a fifth of Cisco’s sales, is expected to resume growth in Q4 2024.

Overall, CSCO ranks 9th on our list of Kevin O’Leary’s stock picks for 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of CSCO, our conviction lies in the belief that certain AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CSCO but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.