The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Given Average Rating of “Hold” by Brokerages

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) has been given a consensus rating of “Hold” by the four ratings firms that are presently covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 12-month price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Separately, Raymond James dropped their price target on shares of Toro from $100.00 to $95.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 20th.

Toro Stock Up 1.1 %

Shares of Toro stock opened at $83.45 on Tuesday. Toro has a twelve month low of $76.95 and a twelve month high of $100.93. The stock has a market capitalization of $8.44 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.81 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a current ratio of 1.81, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $83.14 and its 200-day simple moving average is $86.17.

Toro (NYSE:TTC) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $0.95 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, meeting the consensus estimate of $0.95. Toro had a net margin of 9.14% and a return on equity of 27.25%. The company had revenue of $1.08 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.09 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $0.71 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 9.4% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts forecast that Toro will post 4.41 earnings per share for the current year.

Toro Increases Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were given a $0.38 dividend. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.82%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 23rd. This is a positive change from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio is currently 37.91%.

Toro announced that its Board of Directors has authorized a share repurchase program on Tuesday, December 10th that authorizes the company to repurchase 4,000,000 shares. This repurchase authorization authorizes the company to repurchase shares of its stock through open market purchases. Shares repurchase programs are generally an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Select Equity Group L.P. grew its holdings in Toro by 1.6% during the second quarter. Select Equity Group L.P. now owns 5,519,407 shares of the company’s stock worth $516,120,000 after acquiring an additional 88,536 shares during the period. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.4% in the 2nd quarter. Kayne Anderson Rudnick Investment Management LLC now owns 4,766,046 shares of the company’s stock worth $445,673,000 after purchasing an additional 65,800 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Toro by 1.5% in the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 1,959,875 shares of the company’s stock worth $169,639,000 after purchasing an additional 29,105 shares in the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its stake in Toro by 13.9% during the second quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 901,346 shares of the company’s stock valued at $84,279,000 after purchasing an additional 110,330 shares during the last quarter. Finally, UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC boosted its holdings in Toro by 11.7% during the third quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 618,986 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,685,000 after buying an additional 64,660 shares in the last quarter. 87.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Toro Company Profile

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.