Cisco Surprises

Cisco Systems capped a historic day Wednesday with results and guidance that beat Wall Street expectations.

Cisco’s sales rose 25% to $8.18 billion in the October quarter, ahead of $7.9 billion estimates, and orders grew even faster than sales. Earnings of 31 cents a share were two cents better than forecast and up 24% from the year-ago quarter. Cisco’s January quarter guidance of 24-25% sales growth also was better than the 21.4% Wall Street was looking for.

Excluding Scientific-Atlanta’s $584 million contribution, Cisco’s “organic” growth was a still-healthy 16% in the quarter, and the company forecast 14-15% organic growth for the January quarter.

“The balance was amazingly good everywhere,” Cisco CEO John Chambers said on a conference call. “All elements of our vision have evolved the way we thought. We are hitting on all cylinders, in all product categories, across all geographies.”

“It’s very unusual, even in a strong type of quarter, to have this kind of balance,” he said.

Cisco shares soared 8% in late trading to a fresh multi-year high.

Stocks posted modest gains during the day, as the prospect of the first Democratic Congress in 12 years failed to dent bullish sentiment.

National Semi rose despite warning that wireless demand is weaker than expected, but the chipmaker’s comments hit shares of Motorola and Texas Instruments .

Bitstream , CDW and Greenfield Online gained on their results, while Acme Packet and Website Pros fell on their numbers.

The Nasdaq gained 9 to 2384, the S&P 500 added 3 to 1385, and the Dow climbed 19 to 12,176. Volume rose to 2.9 billion shares on the NYSE, and 2.19 billion on the Nasdaq. Advancers led 20-12 on the NYSE, and 18-12 on the Nasdaq. Upside volume was 54% on the NYSE, and 67% on the Nasdaq. New highs-new lows were 252-20 on the NYSE, and 143-45 on the Nasdaq.