The networking leader's shares rose 1.8% to 18.30 after it announced it was buying cloud-based WLAN company Meraki for $1.2 bil on Sun. "Strategically, we like this deal a lot for Cisco, though the price is steep," wrote a William Blair analyst. "The WLAN sector has proved to be a pocket of strength in a weak IT market fueled by the relentless bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend." Meraki was funded by Sequoia Capital and Google (GOOG).
Japanese stocks rose on Wednesday, thanks to a positive lead from Wall Street plus a softer yen, outperforming …