Cisco Rides Again

At the peak of tech fever in 2000, Cisco Systems (CSCO), the largest global provider of Web networking gear for transporting data, voice, and video, crested at 82 a share. After the bubble burst, Cisco stock drifted lower for almost a decade, to 13.62 this March. Now it's at 23.02, and some bulls believe the rebound will continue.

Investors shouldn't ignore Cisco's big role in "riding the wireless-data wave—the surging demand for more data and devices by users everywhere," says Karl Mills, who heads top-ranked Counterpoint Select Fund (CPFSX). Mills believes the number of electronic devices that feed on data will continue to grow. "We invest in companies that gain from this data wave, such as Cisco," he says, which supplies products such as routers and switching devices connecting and managing communications among local and wide-area computer networks. Cisco has also forayed into consumer markets.