cisco systems

It's football season and time for the old "option" play - with Cisco Systems, IBM and Hewlett-Packard lining up in the backfield.

Options are a riskier way of investing on stocks. Essentially, options allow you to buy or sell a company's stock at a stated price and a stated date.

Investors who bet the stock will go down buy "puts" giving them the right to sell the stock at a higher price. Investors who think a stock will go up buy "calls" which give them the right to buy the stock at a lower price on a specified date.

Cisco Systems, the largest maker of networking equipment, reported that its net income in the fourth quarter rose 4.4 percent, to $2 billion, from a year ago.

"You need 100 percent of the equation for the stock to move up _ you need a good quarter and good guidance"

After seeing Cisco Systems Inc.'s market value plunge $50 billion over the past six months, investors were relieved that the networking equipment maker managed to weather U.S. economic turbulence better than expected in its fiscal third quarter.

The company reported third-quarter profit Tuesday that beat analyst forecasts by 2 cents per share, and it offered fourth-quarter sales guidance in line with Wall Street's projections.