More than 80% of stocks traded in New York were in negative territory Thursday, but Cisco Systems bucked the trend as shares gained value on the company’s bullish forecast.

Shares of the networking equipment maker traded higher Thursday morning after the company said late Wednesday that its fiscal second-quarter earnings jumped 23% to $1.85 billion, or 32 cents per share. In the year-earlier period Cisco ( CSCO – news – people ) posted a profit of $1.5 billion, or 26 cents per share. Excluding one-time charges, Cisco earned 40 cents per share, putting the results ahead of analysts’ consensus call for earnings of 35 cents per share. (Analysts typically exclude one-time items in their earnings estimates.)

“Our outstanding Q2 results exceeded our expectations, and we believe they provide a clear indication that we are entering the second phase of the economic recovery,” said Chief Executive John Chambers. “During the quarter we saw dramatic across-the-board acceleration and sequential improvement in our business in almost all areas.”

Shares of Cisco rallied .7%, to $23.24 Thursday, and the firm was the only member of the 30-stock Dow Jones industrial average to post a gain in an otherwise rocky session for U.S. stocks. (See “Stocks Sell Off, Dollar Firms Up.”)

Meanwhile, Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ – news – people ) was down 2.8% to $47.35, Juniper Networks ( JNPR – news – people ) fell 1.6% to $24.93 and Microsoft ( MSFT – news – people ) shares lost 2.4% to $27.94.

The company’s long-term goal for annual sales growth remains at 12%-17%, but Chambers asked investors to not use a heavy hand in revising their long-term forecasts. “It’s important that expectations not get ahead of market realities, especially until we see job creation,” he said, cautioning that it’s too early to determine if the momentum of economic recovery will persist.

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