Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) shook off several days of recent market selling by soaring 3.87 percent on Monday, March 26, to reach $44.06 at the close. However, the current market volatility forced Cisco to give back most of that gain the following day, when it closed at $42.68.

While no stock is immune to the ongoing market turbulence, Cisco is still attractive, as a technology company that pays a dividend with a yield of nearly 3 percent. That dividend helps to limit its vulnerability to nerve-wracking market drops.

Many technology stocks shun paying dividends to put as much money as possible toward future growth, but Cisco is a proven network technology giant that has bought 16 companies in the past two years, resumed growing revenues and received a 12-month price target hike to $54 from Goldman Sachs on March 22.

Investors who are concerned about the recent sell-off in technology stocks should remain vigilant in watching the market, but certainly not panic. Part of the cause of the weakness in technology stocks earlier in March stemmed from a controversy in Facebook (NASDAQ:FB). The company provided personnel data from 50 million of the social media company’s users to Cambridge Analytica, which used the information to help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

As market volatility rises, Cisco offers investors a “relatively defensive” technology sector stock, wrote Rod Hall, a technology analyst with Goldman Sachs. Cisco serves “healthy and improving” markets, which combined with renewed revenue growth and other positive financial signs to lead Goldman Sachs to add the stock to its “Americas Conviction List” on March 22, when Hall boosted his price target on the company from $51 to $54.

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Paul Dykewicz, www.pauldykewicz.com, is an accomplished, award-winning journalist who has written for Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Investor’s Business Daily, USA Today, the Journal of Commerce,Seeking Alpha, GuruFocus and other publications and websites. Paul is the editor of StockInvestor.com and DividendInvestor.com, a writer for both websites and a columnist. He further is the editorial director of Eagle Financial Publications in Washington, D.C., where he edits monthly investment newsletters, time-sensitive trading alerts, free e-letters and other investment reports. Paul previously served as business editor of Baltimore’s Daily Recordnewspaper. Paul also is the author of an inspirational book, “Holy Smokes! Golden Guidance from Notre Dame’s Championship Chaplain,” with a foreword by former national championship-winning football coach Lou Holtz.