Traders are treating this legacy tech giant like the next 'meme' stock

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins appears at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2026. Krisztian Bocsi | Bloomberg | Options traders might have found a new big-tech favorite ahead of this week's earnings: legacy networking giant Cisco , a stock that's undergone a years-long pivot to software and cloud-based AI technology and is now surging into its Wednesday report. Shares are up 15% in the past month and options bulls are piling in, with more than 75,000 calls traded by noon central time Friday, compared to 16,000 puts. More than twice as many calls traded at the ask or above than at the bid, meaning traders were buying upside exposure. The shares were ticking higher Monday in a tough tape. Most of the trading was in at-or-near-the-money call contracts that shifted higher as the stock added onto gains throughout the session Friday, with the 100-strike call expiring May 15 the most popular contract by volume and the 95-strike expiring the same day accumulating the most premium traded. Stock Chart Icon Stock chart icon Cisco, YTD What's perhaps most notable is that implied volatility -- the price of trading options in Cisco – is rising quickly amid the trading bonanza. Implied volatility on Friday touched 47, the highest in more than a year and on par with the semiconductor index, a sector where stocks have been making parabolic moves. …