The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

The Toro Company (NYSE:TTC) has received an average rating of “Hold” from the four research firms that are currently covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold recommendation and one has given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 1-year target price among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $93.75.

Separately, Raymond James lowered 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 Performance

Shares of TTC stock opened at $80.17 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.59, a quick ratio of 0.74 and a current ratio of 1.81. Toro has a 52 week low of $76.95 and a 52 week high of $100.93. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $83.15 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $85.43. The company has a market capitalization of $8.11 billion, a P/E ratio of 19.99 and a beta of 0.72.

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

Toro announced that its board has initiated a stock repurchase plan on Tuesday, December 10th that allows the company to repurchase 4,000,000 outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization allows the company to reacquire shares of its stock through open market purchases. Stock repurchase plans are typically a sign that the company’s leadership believes its shares are undervalued.

Toro Increases Dividend

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Monday, January 13th. Investors of record on Monday, December 23rd were issued a dividend of $0.38 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, December 23rd. This represents a $1.52 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 1.90%. This is a boost from Toro’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.36. Toro’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 37.91%.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in TTC. HighTower Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in Toro by 8.8% during the 4th quarter. HighTower Advisors LLC now owns 9,191 shares of the company’s stock valued at $736,000 after purchasing an additional 744 shares during the last quarter. Wealthfront Advisers LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Toro during the 4th quarter worth about $3,226,000. Inspire Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Toro during the 4th quarter worth about $402,000. King Luther Capital Management Corp grew its stake in Toro by 3.6% in the 4th quarter. King Luther Capital Management Corp now owns 1,043,833 shares of the company’s stock valued at $83,611,000 after buying an additional 36,750 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank raised its holdings in Toro by 68.7% in the 4th quarter. Zurcher Kantonalbank Zurich Cantonalbank now owns 62,762 shares of the company’s stock valued at $5,027,000 after acquiring an additional 25,561 shares during the period. 87.95% of the stock is currently 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.