Toro (NYSE:TTC) Hits New 1-Year Low – Time to Sell?

Shares of The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) hit a new 52-week low during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as low as $71.50 and last traded at $71.98, with a volume of 367222 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $72.79.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have commented on TTC. Northland Capmk upgraded shares of Toro from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Friday, February 21st. StockNews.com cut shares of Toro from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Raymond James cut their price target on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Friday, December 20th. DA Davidson cut their price target on shares of Toro from $86.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research note on Tuesday, March 11th. Finally, Robert W. Baird dropped their price objective on shares of Toro from $88.00 to $84.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, March 7th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Toro currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $89.75.

Toro Price Performance

The company has a market capitalization of $7.19 billion, a P/E ratio of 18.00 and a beta of 0.70. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $80.12 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $82.65. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a current ratio of 1.81 and a quick ratio of 0.74.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The business had revenue of $1.08 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.09 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.71 earnings per share. Toro’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that The Toro Company will post 4.41 EPS for the current year.

Toro Announces Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Monday, April 14th. Investors of record on Monday, March 31st will be given a dividend of $0.38 per share. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.11%. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is 38.87%.

Toro declared that its board has approved a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that permits the company to repurchase 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to purchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Toro

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of TTC. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Toro by 1.7% in the 3rd quarter. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC now owns 11,806 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,024,000 after buying an additional 202 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 7.1% in the 3rd quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 2,366 shares of the company’s stock valued at $205,000 after purchasing an additional 156 shares in the last quarter. Quest Partners LLC boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 62,750.0% in the 3rd quarter. Quest Partners LLC now owns 3,771 shares of the company’s stock valued at $327,000 after purchasing an additional 3,765 shares in the last quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 2.8% in the 3rd quarter. Lindenwold Advisors INC now owns 4,612 shares of the company’s stock valued at $400,000 after purchasing an additional 125 shares in the last quarter. Finally, PNC Financial Services Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Toro by 2.5% in the 3rd quarter. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. now owns 19,492 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,691,000 after purchasing an additional 478 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About Toro

The Toro Company designs, manufactures, markets, and sells professional turf maintenance equipment and services. It operates through two segments: Professional and Residential. The Professional segment offers turf and landscape equipment products, including sports fields and grounds mowing and maintenance equipment, golf course mowing and maintenance equipment, landscape contractor mowing equipment, landscape creation and renovation equipment, and other maintenance equipment; rental, specialty, and underground construction equipment, such as horizontal directional drills, walk and ride trenchers, stand-on skid steers, vacuum excavators, stump grinders, turf renovation products, asset locators, pipe rehabilitation solutions, materials handling equipment, and other after-market tools; and snow and ice management equipment, such as snowplows, as well as stand-on snow and ice removal equipment, such as snowplow, snow brush, and snow thrower attachments, salt and sand spreaders, and related parts and accessories for light and medium duty trucks, utility task vehicles, skid steers, and front-end loaders.